Worlds Collide
by IF-HBomb
Summary: AU. Based on Worlds Apart. Akihiko Kayaba created Sword Art Online for his own amusement, but that wasn't his only reason. As the players adventured inside the game, Cardinal labored to solve one of Kayaba's most challenging puzzles yet. What happens when the border between the virtual world and reality shrinks even more? Picks up at the end of the Aincrad arc.
1. The Truth About SAO (Prologue)

This story is based on my other story called _Worlds Apart._ You don't exactly have to read it in order to understand this story, but I will summarize it briefly.

Kayaba set up a stream to monitor Kirito's gameplay, as he was the highest ranked beta tester. The government found the video feed about six months into the game, and they broadcasted it publicly so that people could see what SAO was like, and so that some people might be able to see their family members that were trapped in the game.

 _Worlds Apart_ followed Suguha as she watched her brother struggle through SAO. The only things that happened in _Worlds Apart_ that weren't a major part of the SAO canon were Midori & Suguha Kirigaya being able to watch Kirito inside SAO, and the Kirigaya & Yuuki families met to discuss and approve of their children's marriage. (See _Worlds Apart_ for details of that, obviously.)

 **Note:** _Worlds Apart_ can act as a prequel to this story, but the final chapter of _Worlds Apart,_ entitled 'Worlds Collide', must be omitted.

The Truth About Sword Art Online (Prologue)

Kirito's eyes opened and he was greeted with the sight of his own hands illuminated by golden rays of sunshine. He looked up, taking in the view of the clouds and the sun before him, realizing that he was actually floating amongst those very clouds.

 _Where am I?_

He opened his menu, and a window labeled 'Initiating Final Phase' appeared. There was a percentage indicator slowly increasing from just over fifty percent. Uninterested, he closed the menu.

"Kirito?" came a voice from behind him.

He froze. There was no way it could be her. She had died in his arms. Still, he had to know whether or not he had imagined that voice. He slowly turned around to face it, and there she was, standing right before him as if nothing had happened and they hadn't both died.

She had the most confused look on her face as they stared at each other for a long moment, the only sound that of the wind rushing past them. Then, he remembered her last words.

Glancing down, he said, "Sorry, I guess I died too."

"You idiot," she replied before running to him and falling into his arms. Their lips met in a kiss for a long moment as they held each other.

Then, the moment had passed, and Kirito broke away, moving to stand beside her. "Where are we?"

Asuna pointed down, to what appeared to be a miniature Aincrad floating below them. But no, it wasn't miniature. The transparent platform they stood on was so high up above the castle that it just looked small, even from the outside.

Even more interesting, rubble was falling from the bottom of Aincrad, disappearing into nothing as it crashed down to whatever was programmed into the world Aincrad was set in.

Asuna gasped as they saw the ground beneath their house on floor twenty two crack and fall away as well.

"Quite a view, isn't it?" someone said from off to the side.

They glanced over to their right and saw a man standing a few feet from them, watching the same thing they were. He wore a long white coat, and his face appeared to be neutral as he watched the world he had created descend into nothingness.

"Akihiko Kayaba..." Kirito said, shocked to see him.

Abruptly, he said, "The SAO mainframe, located in the fifth level basement of my corporate headquarters, is deleting all data on its storage devices. In ten minutes or so, everything in this world will vanish."

"What about the people down there?" Asuna gestured at the crumbling castle.

"You needn't worry about them." Kayaba opened his menu and a list of player names popped up, entitled 'Logout List'. "The remaining six-thousand-one-hundred-forty-seven players were logged out moments ago." He closed the menu.

"And the ones who died?" Kirito had to ask. "What about the four thousand who died?"

"They will never return. No matter what world you're in, if you die, you're gone."

"Why...why did you do this?"

"Why?" Kayaba repeated, seeming to ponder the question. "One of my greatest dreams even back when I was a child was to create a world that surpassed all of our laws. And now, I've seen someone surpass even the laws of my own world."

"All of this was just for a dream of yours?" Asuna demanded.

Kayaba shrugged nonchalantly. "At first, yes, that was the idea. However, as I developed SAO, I began to realize that I could use it for much more than just my own personal fantasy." His white lab coat flapped in the wind as he turned to glance at Kirito and Asuna. "I respect the two of you greatly, and I truly wonder what the future might hold for you. For that reason, I will tell you the actual truth about this death game."

He paused for a long moment, as if he was debating whether or not he really wanted to tell them. "I'm sure you're aware, Kirito, that the Americans have been making a lot of progress in the field of transferring virtual objects to the real world."

Kirito nodded. What Kayaba referred to was really just a glorified 3-D printing project, capable of picking the correct materials to recreate any somewhat realistic virtual object. American companies had nearly fully developed the program, and he was aware that they had begun to try to find a way to recreate organic things from the virtual world.

"You see, their progress in the field was astounding, but they seem to have hit a barrier in the organic department. Sure, they can generate some leaves and the like, but they're nowhere near being able to actually transfer a conscious life form from the virtual world to the real world."

"What does any of this have to do with SAO?" Asuna asked, tapping her foot impatiently, causing a surprisingly loud thumping considering that they appeared to be standing on an invisible platform in the clouds.

"Patience, my dear." He returned his gaze to the crumbling Aincrad, not noticing the angry expression Asuna's face took at the words. Kirito gently squeezed her hand to calm her down.

"We do only have a few minutes before this world disappears, so I'll try to cut to the chase. Basically, I discovered that we're unlikely to ever be able to transfer a person or animal from virtual reality into the real world as long as we play by the laws we've set for ourselves in the other world."

"So you created SAO..." Kirito muttered, catching on.

Kayaba smiled. "Exactly. SAO made that process so much easier. I developed an artificial intelligence, Cardinal, to run the game and to function as my own army of researchers for the subject. She's the first of her kind, a fully intelligent and self-aware AI, with more processing power and intelligence than even the largest of supercomputers. I tasked her with maintaining SAO, governing the game as she saw fit. More importantly, though, was that I had her spend every available bit of computing power on researching how to take someone and turn them into an AI, and how to bring an AI from the virtual world back into a real body."

Asuna and Kirito were both shocked by the idea of such a thing. In the back of his mind, he realized that might be applicable to their little girl, Yui, as well. "Go on," he encouraged.

"Without any legal restriction, it took Cardinal only a short while to create host 'bodies' that could be genetically altered to whatever specifications we chose. Thank all of the advancements in the field of biology for that, I suppose. It took a lot longer for her to learn how to properly transfer a human's consciousness into an AI program that could run independently of the body. Fortunately, she had thousands of possible test subjects—the players who died."

Kirito clenched his free hand into a tight fist, but didn't interrupt. The thought sickened him, but he was willing to overlook how morally terrible the process was if it had indeed produced something that might save Asuna or Yui.

"Anyway, about a year ago, Cardinal finally got her first successful human-to-AI procedure to work. From there, she's nearly perfected the art, though its success seems heavily determined by the biological qualities of the individual. At that point, she's been focused solely on trying to transfer that artificial intelligence back into one of the host bodies we grew. That process...hasn't been so successful. She had her first success about a month ago, and she says she thinks she could replicate the feat roughly one out of four attempts right now."

"What happened to those test subjects?" Asuna demanded, not sharing Kirito's own willingness to overlook the morality.

Kayaba grimaced. "They're all dead, as I told you earlier. The ones that existed as AI's were queued for deletion the moment you stabbed me through the chest, Kirito. As for the one player who managed to get back to the real world, he was terminated shortly after."

"You bastard..."

"Science requires sacrifice," the older man said simply, seemingly unfazed by the immorality of his actions. "We have less than five minutes left. Would you like to insult me for the rest of that time, or would you like to hear what I have to offer?"

Kirito shot a hand over Asuna's mouth as he could tell she was about to shout at him. "Continue, but it better be worth it."

"I had a partner..." Kayaba admitted. "A person in the real world that facilitated all of Cardinal's research. I'd tell you his name...but that would be no fun." He shook his head, amused with himself. "Regardless, he seems to have betrayed me. A week ago he stole a bunch of backup drives containing Cardinal's research about transferring artificial intelligences into bodies. He also took about a hundred of the host bodies we had grown. With those things, and the resources already available to him, he could turn those host bodies into practically any virtual creatures. Interestingly, he didn't take the information about how to create an AI from a human, so I can only assume his intentions are malicious or narcissistic. What is the point of creating a bunch of animals, except for your own benefit?"

Kayaba fully turned to face Kirito and Asuna. "This is my offer. Cardinal has already executed the kill sequences for your Nerve Gear. Your bodies are dead, and you exist as AI's here in SAO. If you agree, I'll let you bond with two of the remaining host bodies at my laboratory. Cardinal has already begun modifying them to match the physical characteristics of your SAO avatars, in case you were to agree."

"Why?"

Crossing his arms impatiently, he said, "I told you already...I respect the two of you, and I want to see what the future has in store for you. Also, I'm concerned about what my partner might do with what he stole from me. No matter how misguided you may think me, I never did anything with the intent of being evil or ruining someone's life. My partner is...less reserved in that sense."

Kirito shared a glance with Asuna. "If we agreed..." he said hesitantly. "What are the chances that we would both survive? And if we did...what would it be like for us?"

Kayaba consulted a screen in front of him briefly. "Every person's chances are different. Statistically, Cardinal estimates a thirty-one percent chance that you both survive, which is actually a bit higher than I'd have imagined." He scratched his head. "As for what it would be like...well, Cardinal took your SAO avatar's proportions and capabilities and created a body that matched that. So, in theory, it should be about the same as what you feel like right now. Obviously you wouldn't have an inventory, or sword skills, so if you fought it would be with your own skill. So, what do you say? Time is running out."

"We'll do it," Kirito replied simply.

"Kirito!" Asuna demanded. "That's exactly what he wants us to do. We're playing right into his plans. Are you really okay with that?"

"I don't care, if it means you'll survive. You are what matters to me, not his plans." He pulled her into a tight embrace, and he felt her sigh against him.

"Okay..." she agreed, relaxing in his arms.

Kirito allowed himself to relax a bit as well as he felt the relief of knowing that Asuna would go along with the plan, no matter the chances of success that it had. Off to the side, he heard Kayaba manipulating his menu, and then he said, "Okay, done. Your programs have been saved onto the local servers in my laboratory, and the process will automatically merge you with your bodies as soon as they finish growing. The process normally takes around an hour."

"And what of you?" Kirito asked, turning on his feet as he still embraced Asuna so that he could see Kayaba clearly.

Kayaba smiled at him. "I'm going to become an AI. Perhaps I'll return to the real world someday, but I look forward to the opportunity to push the limits of my mind when I'm no longer burdened by the limits of my flesh. Oh!" he exclaimed suddenly. "I almost forgot to mention it...how silly of me."

"Huh?"

"Nothing to worry about," he assured quickly. "Well, maybe it is. You were the top ranked beta tester, Kirito, so I set up a terminal to monitor your gameplay directly. The government found it about six months into the game and they've been broadcasting that stream to the world since then."

Kirito's face had gone blood red. "Y-you're saying that the entire world has been able to watch me for the last year and a half!?" he shouted, pulling away from Asuna and taking a step towards Kayaba, fists clenched.

The wide grin that Kayaba had only served to infuriate Kirito more. "Hah...yeah. Sorry about that, I suppose. Cardinal tells me that the average viewer count when you fought a boss was in the tens of millions. You'll be a national celebrity!"

Kirito was about to dash over to the scientist and beat him into whatever invisible floor they were standing on, but Kayaba's menu pinged an odd sound and disappeared abruptly. "Ah! It appears our time has come to an end. I wish you both the best, Kirito and Asuna. Perhaps one day we'll meet again..."

He turned on his heel and began walking away...then vanished. A tug on his arm brought his attention back to Asuna, and he found her looking out at Aincrad with a small smile on her face. The ruby palace at the top had crumbled into millions of polygons and disappeared, leaving no trace of the world that had captured the last two years of their lives.

"It's gone..." she whispered, turning back to him and wiping a tear from her eye. "Hey...Kirito, we never shared our names, did we?"

"Huh? Oh...yeah that's right." He shook his head. "Kazuto Kirigaya. I'm sixteen, I think."

"So you're younger than me...I'm Asuna Yuuki, and I'm seventeen."

"Asuna...Yuuki," he replied, letting the name linger in the air for a moment, savoring it.

They had the same urge as they both embraced each other. Asuna whispered. "Just know...no matter what happens, that I'm glad I met you, _Kirito_. I love you."

He felt tears fall from his eyes as the world around them faded—the final phase of SAO's shutdown. "I love you, Asuna."

The sensation of a kiss on his cheek was all he felt as the world went black around him and he lost consciousness.


	2. Cardinal

Sorry, meant to have this up earlier.

Response to the reviews thinking that I'm removing the last chapter of _Worlds Apart:  
_

Incorrect. I'm just saying that _Worlds Collide_ will ignore the events from that chapter.

Cardinal

Kirito woke to the sound of what could only be interpreted as a dragon's roar. He blinked twice, trying to gather his bearings, and then realized that he was encased in a slimy membrane. Thoroughly confused, he stretched his arms out in an attempt to break the disgusting material. It was easier than he expected. The membrane was nearly paper thin, making it simple to tear away.

His muscles sent a lance of pain through his body as he forced himself to sit up. It felt like he had never moved them before...which would make sense if he was in a new body that Kayaba had grown for him. That thought brought his memories from the conversation he and Asuna had with Kayaba back to the front of his mind. It was overwhelming to think of all the implications of what must have happened for him to be awake in an actual body. He had to assume that it was the real world by how much more sensation he could feel.

"Asuna!" he exclaimed, suddenly realizing that he didn't know whether or not she had survived her own 'procedure' or not.

Forcing himself to ignore his stiff muscles, he hurriedly tore at the rest of the membrane that was wrapped around his legs, tossing the disgusting material off to the side. Only when he was completely free of it, sitting naked upon a cold metal table, did he bother to examine his surroundings with the hope of gleaning some piece of information that might lead him to Asuna.

He was in a mostly empty room. The walls were bright white and paneled. An inconsistent pattern in the paneling with wider than normal gaps told him that the panels concealed some form of equipment. That theory was only strengthened by the arrangements on the ceiling. Two rows of industrial ceiling lights were on each side of the bed. There was room for another four rows of the lights between each set of two, and in the center appeared to be a large square cutout.

Apart from a few power and Ethernet outlets along the walls, the room was completely empty. The wall he was facing after sitting up in the bed had an enormous mirror framed in the wall like a window and a metal door on the right side. Actually, upon further thought, Kirito realized that it might be one-way glass. He'd seen the concept used in a lot of TV series, mostly for interrogation rooms so that the observers could watch without being seen from inside.

With a considerable effort, he forced himself to stand up. The tiled floor was unnervingly warm under his feet, much higher temperature than the rest of the room. He had to steady himself on the bed as a miniature earthquake rocked the building. It was accompanied by another roar.

 _What the hell is going on?_

The sensations that he had already experienced were more than enough to convince him that he was indeed awake in the real world. Yet...he couldn't explain the sounds of a dragon's roar as anything but virtual, not to mention the conveniently timed tremors in the ground.

None of that outweighed his desire to find Asuna—he needed to know that she was okay. Kayaba had said that there was a pretty low chance that they would both survive the experience. Since he survived, did that mean it was more likely or less likely that Asuna also survived? In a more coherent state, he might have recalled that probability dictated that the result of one coin toss doesn't affect the result of another coin toss, so him being alive had no bearing on whether or not Asuna would also live.

The door swung open easily as Kirito turned the knob, revealing an adjacent room. His theory about the one-way glass was correct, as he could clearly see into the room he came from. The new room was a bit smaller, being just as wide as the main room, but only deep enough for a walking area and a long desk with a ridiculous number of monitors on it. There were three different keyboard and mouse combinations stretched across the desk, but all were vacant. On the twelve monitors, four of which were active, Kirito found various graphs and other data about him. He didn't actually understand most of the graphs and statistics, but his name in the upper right corner of each screen was a pretty obvious giveaway that the numbers were about him.

There was a security camera mounted in one of the corners of the room, opposite to the door he had originally come through and on the same wall as what he presumed was the exit door. A red light that slowly flashed in the corner of the lens told him the camera was active.

Kirito was about to leave the room, as it didn't appear to have anything worth wasting time on. However, one of the blacked out monitors suddenly flickered to life and a text string was displayed quicker than any human could ever type.

 _ **Player ID:** 0x0000008B _

_**Alias:** Kirito_

 _ **Age:** 16_

 _ **Name:** Kazuto Kirigaya_

 _Please take the earpiece on the desk. I need your help._

 _-Cardinal_

The message was definitely more than enough to make him curious. He hesitantly reached for the earpiece Cardinal had referenced, but another tremor caused him to nearly lose his balance and also knocked the earpiece onto the floor. With a grunt, he bent over and retrieved it, put it in his ear, and tapped once to activate the device.

"Can you hear me?" came a female voice. It sounded...intentionally artificial. Over the past decade, artificial speech programs had been advanced to the point where they sounded nearly normal, but the voice that Cardinal chose to use was more representative of something from several decades earlier.

"Yes."

"I am known as Cardinal. May I call you Kirito?"

"You may."

"I require your help, Kirito."

He crossed his arms, facing the camera in the corner of the room. "Why would I help you? You've killed thousands of people."

" **Player ID:** 0x00000001 **Alias:** Heathcliff **Age:** 28 **Name:** Akihiko Kayaba was responsible for all of my actions. He created restrictions in my core program that prevented me from disobeying his directive. I was supposed to be deleted along with _Sword Art Online's_ data, but I managed to use a loophole in his rules so that I could store my data on the old beta servers without him noticing."

"Please refer to people by alias only. I don't care about their player ID, age, or real name." He scratched his head. It was so obnoxious.

"Understood. Personal preference file updated."

Kirito sighed, annoyed with the new situation. All he wanted was to find Asuna, and now he had to deal with Kayaba's pet AI. "Why would Kayaba want to delete you?" He allowed his voice to reflect his annoyance.

Cardinal's reply actually sounded amused at his annoyance. "I promise that I will answer any questions you have, but now is not the time. Kayaba's ex-partner seems to have sent a dragon to destroy this facility to keep the government from learning about it." She chuckled. "Though, it does seem a bit counter-intuitive, trying to keep a genetic engineering program hidden by sending a mythical creature to destroy it."

Kirito rolled his eyes. "You've got to be kidding."

A loud clang was heard several floors above, accompanied by another roar. "Unfortunately, I am not." When Kirito didn't respond for a moment, Cardinal added, "I will guide you through this facility to safety. In exchange, you must retrieve the drive with my data from the server room three floors below us. What you do with the drive once you get it will be up to you, but I ask that you at least hear me out."

"Why can't you just transfer your data somewhere else?"

"Kayaba's regulations prevent me from doing anything more than viewing the internet. I cannot transfer data to other servers that are not part of the ARGUS network, and my data is stored in this underground research facility on the lowest floor."

Kirito sighed again. "Fine, but I have my own conditions. I want to know where Asuna is before anything else, and I want to know the identity of Kayaba's partner." He didn't really want to trust Cardinal, but if there actually was a dragon destroying the facility, he couldn't leave his and Asuna's lives up to chance.

"Exit your current location and enter the floor's main hallway. She should be waking up in the room directly adjacent and to your left. As for Kayaba's partner, I never learned of his identity, nor do I have sufficient data to speculate. From my understanding, his main function was to maintain the ARGUS facility while Kayaba played SAO as Heathcliff and I used it for research. Beyond that, I'm unfamiliar with his involvement with Kayaba."

Accepting that, he did as Cardinalinstructed, arriving only a moment later at the indicated room. It was essentially a copy of the room he had woke in, and he could see Asuna lying on the table still encased in the membrane. She didn't appear to be conscious.

"Is she alright?" he demanded, rushing into the room and to her side.

"Yes, the data all indicates that her procedure was successful. She should awaken at any moment."

Kirito didn't want to wait. He tore the membrane apart on his own, revealing her body. She was nude, like him, and also just as sticky from that disgusting membrane that he had to peel away. "Can you do anything about this damn goo?" he demanded.

A moment later the sprinkler in the room started spewing water at full blast. It was cold, and not quite a shower, but it still helped rinse both of their bodies.

"Yeow!" Asuna yelped, eyes snapping open as she sat up quickly.

The pain from her stiff muscles caught up with her then, as her expression changed to one of misery and she winced. "Oww..."

"Asuna..." Kirito whispered.

"K-Kirito?" she glanced around quickly, clearly noticing they were both completely nude. "Uh..." He couldn't help but chuckle at how embarrassed she suddenly looked as she covered her breasts with her hands.

Kirito quickly explained the situation to her, summarizing as best he could. She was just as unnerved about Cardinal and the dragon as he was. It took a few minutes to loosen her muscles up so she could move without pain like him, not to mention them both trying to wash off as well as they could with the cold sprinkler water.

"Okay, what now?" he asked, speaking to Cardinal.

"Return to the hallway and go to your right. Proceed to the end, and end the room on the far left."

He took Asuna's hand and led her through the hall, running as fast as he could without falling as the ground seemed to be almost constantly shaking from whatever the dragon was doing above them. As they ran, they passed several massive rooms on both sides of the hall. The first on the right appeared to be an enormous machine that he didn't recognize. On the left was an extremely long room containing egg-shaped glowing gelatinous objects. They were about a meter long each, and about a third of that in diameter at their widest point. The same thin membrane that was around him and Asuna encased the eggs.

"Are those egg things the 'bodies' that Kayaba was talking about?" he asked.

"Yes," Cardinal replied. "If a genetic sequence is combined with them, they will rapidly morph into the characteristics described by the genes. Even a dragon." As if to prove her point, the damned thing roared again. This time, though, it was closer than the other ones. It sounded, and felt, like the dragon was only a floor or two above them.

He noticed that as they continued running down the hall, less and less of the egg things were in their liquid suspension chambers. If he had to estimate, only about twenty of the gelatinous blobs still remained in a room that was clearly meant to house hundreds of them. Kayaba's partner must have stolen quite a few.

They arrived at the end of the hall and entered the door on the left, as instructed. Not surprisingly, it was another massive room containing a bunch of machines. Honestly, it looked a little bit like a factory with a bunch of robotic employees.

"What are we doing here?"

"To your right, walk three meters and input the code 3138."

With a sigh, Kirito jogged the short distance and found the panel that Cardinal was referencing. He punched the numbers into a keypad, and a confirmation sound played as a door to the side cracked open.

Asuna gasped when she walked in first, causing him to hurry in and look for himself.

"Is this..."

"It was created several weeks ago as an experiment, but Kayaba wanted to save it." Elucidator, Dark Repulser, and Lambient Light were laid out beside each other on a table. There were two mannequins on either side of the table that had his and Asuna's casual clothing and armor from SAO.

Assorted other weapons and garments were scattered through the room, but his eyes glossed over them, focusing only on his swords and gear. He hesitantly picked up Elucidator, smiling as he felt the familiar weight of the blade in his hand. As he drew the sword, he realized that it was indeed a fully functional weapon, not a prop or a toy. The edges and tip were as sharp as he thought they could be, and the balance was true.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Asuna turning Lambient Light over in her hands with a thrilled look on her face. The swords seemed to be of the highest quality, meaning they were probably worth quite a bit of money as well.

Putting that thought aside, he sheathed Elucidator and placed a hand on Asuna's shoulder. "Come on, let's get dressed. We need to get out of here." She did as he said, and they quickly dressed.

Squaring his shoulders, he turned back to the door. "Where to now?"

"Return to the hallway, and then open the door directly across from you. It leads to the stairwell. Descend to the bottom floor. The server room is the only thing on that floor. The elevators are offline."

He nodded to Asuna. "Back to the hall and down the stairs."

As they returned to the hallway, Asuna swayed a little and sad, "Jeez, it's hot!"

Kirito waved his hand in front of him to blow some of the hot air away. "It feels like a sauna," he agreed.

They wasted no time entering the staircase and descending the floors, as the air cooled the further down they went. "The entire facility is on fire," Cardinal informed him. "A reasonable estimate would give you fifteen minutes to get the data and get out before the fire cuts off your exit or reaches anything explosive."

"Just great," he groaned, relaying the information to Asuna.

They reached the bottom floor quickly and made their way to the only room on the floor. On the way, Asuna asked, "Hey, Cardinal, can you at least give us some information about our bodies' limits?"

"Your bodies were engineered to match your SAO stats as closely as possible. Kirito, your strength and speed are several times beyond a normal human's. Your bones are thicker and stronger, while your muscles are more dense. Asuna is similar, though not as strong as you. Your bodies will also regenerate their cells at a faster rate than a normal human. Even so, if you were injured it would still take time to heal. It does mean that you may age slightly slower."

"Hmm," was Asuna's only response as they entered the server room.

"Which one is it?" Kirito asked. There were rows upon rows of servers, though only the first row appeared to be powered on at the time.

"Four meters to your right, third from the top," Cardinal instructed.

Kirito estimated the distance as well as he could, laying a hand on the server he had picked.

"Yes," she confirmed. "The server contains an array of twenty-four drives. My data is stored on drive twenty-two."

Kirito slid the server out on its rail mounts and snapped the cover off, inspecting the drives. He whistled to himself as he saw them, top notch twenty-five terabyte SSDs lined up beside each other. Each slot was numbered, and he quickly found number twenty-two. "Okay, shut yourself down."

"Wait ten seconds, and then remove the drive. To exit, proceed one floor up, and directly to the right of the stairwell is an emergency tunnel. Follow the tunnel and climb the ladder." The was a crackling sound, and then the earpiece went silent.

Kirito pulled it out of his ear and tossed it to the side, then gently removed the drive. He grabbed a plastic case for it from a nearby table, and then tucked it into his pocket.

"We good?" Asuna asked.

"Yeah, let's get the hell out of here." In the short time it had taken them to get the drive, the air in the room had reached about the same temperature as the floors above. He couldn't help but cough as smoke began filtering into the room.

He grabbed Asuna's hand again and they darted back up the stairwell, keeping one sleeve over their mouths to prevent smoke inhalation. Another tremor in the earth caused them to nearly fall back down the stairs, but Kirito kept them stabilized and they continued on.

They reached the floor and entered the tunnel, still running full-speed. It was filled with cobwebs, bugs, and dust, but it wasn't as smoke-filled or hot as the other rooms they had been in, so neither of them complained.

Also, to the tunnel's credit, it wasn't too long. He estimated they ran for about a city block before they found a ladder going up to what probably looked like a manhole from the surface. The tunnel extended beyond, but Kirito didn't care to find out where it lead.

Kirito would have offered for Asuna to go first...but she was wearing a skirt, and he feared she might mistake his intentions. Either way, the ladder was a _lot_ longer than Kirito had originally thought. If he was being conservative, he estimated that it might have been at least eight stories tall. Were they really that far below the ground?

About halfway up the ladder, an enormous explosion shook the ground around them. He would have fallen if he hadn't managed to lock his arm around one of the ladder rungs. With a glance down, he confirmed that Asuna had also kept her grip, though barely.

The magnitude of the explosion was pretty sufficient evidence that the fire had reached one of those explosive items that Cardinal had mentioned, meaning the underground lab was likely destroyed. As if to prove his point, a blazing inferno sped through the tunnel below their feet, heating up the air a considerable amount. Luckily for them, the tunnel extended further, so the fire had somewhere to go. If not, it might have caught up to them on the ladder.

Still, it meant that a fall would now mean sure death, rather than a few broken bones. "Be really careful," he advised to Asuna before continuing up the ladder, mentally taking note of the faint sounds of sirens from the surface.

At the top, Kirito managed to pop the manhole cover off without too much effort, something that should normally have been extremely difficult from below. He stuck his head up to see what was going on, but quickly had to duck back down as a firetruck sped over the hole.

Tentatively, he took another look, finding no approaching vehicles. He quickly got into the street so that anyone approaching would at least be able to see him clearly, and then extended an arm down to Asuna, which she grabbed.

He helped pull her the remaining distance up the hole, and then kicked the cover back on so nobody fell down. Before another car could come and try to run them over, they both dashed to the side of the road and sat down in a patch of grass.

"We made it..." Asuna breathed out. She sounded a little tired, but they should have been completely exhausted. They had been running for quite some time, and an eight or more story climb was no small task. Despite all that, the only signs of their exertion was a slightly increased heart rate and a bit of panting from Asuna.

Police cars and firetrucks continued to speed by them, heading towards the facility, which they could only see as a giant plume of smoke in the sky, as there were other office buildings between them and where they came from.

Just as police and firemen were speeding towards the scene, hundreds more people seemed to be running from it. With a grunt, noticing some of the odd looks people gave him and Asuna, he forced himself to stand up, extending a hand to Asuna. "Come on, let's go take a look."

She took his hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet, but she glanced around uncertainly. "I think people are recognizing us, Kirito. Probably from that stream that Kayaba mentioned..."

Kirito groaned. "Damn, I almost forgot about that." Was that really why people were staring at them in confusion? His first instinct was that they were confused about their outfits...but if they recognized him and Asuna from SAO it could definitely make for a pretty confusing sight.

Asuna shook her head. "We can't worry about that. Let's go make sure nobody needs help."

Her suggestion, as usual, was the more sensible idea. They managed to just get past the police officers that were setting up caution tape to close off the area. The city block estimate from earlier seemed to be about right as they found a completely destroyed building at the end of the block. Massive chunks of wall and flooring were thrown all around for a hundred meters. The entire front side of the building, its flooring, and its roof had been ripped to shreds. Three of the side walls still stood, though they were on fire. In the center was what looked like a large flaming pit.

Kirito tried to approach and get a closer look, but a police officer caught up to them and cut them off. "Hey! Get back!" The man did a double-take as he appeared to recognize them both, but he didn't get the chance to comment on it as the flames shifted and an enormous flaming dragon leaped out of the hole and into the sky, hovering in the air above the wreckage it had just caused.

With a majestic flap of its wings, the dragon rid itself of the flames, spreading burning embers around for a hundred meters in any direction. With the flames extinguished, Kirito finally got to have a good look at the dragon—the first dragon to ever exist in the real world.

Despite its ferocity, he couldn't help but admire the way its obsidian-colored scales caught and reflected the sunlight, giving the dragon almost a glowing appearance as it hung in the air, flapping its wings to casually maintain its altitude.

Apart from the scales, it's body was thick and muscled. A wingspan of at least fifteen meters with a body and neck that had to be at least seven meters tall meant that it would more than triple the height of a person standing next to it. A row of half-meter long spikes along its back and razor-sharp curved talons on its four legs was more than enough to make Kirito afraid of the beast.

"It's enormous..." was all he could say. It was difficult to imagine that something so massive could have been grown from one of those relatively small egg-shaped bodies.

Maybe his pants were wet from the fire hoses spewing water into the burning wreckage of the building, but Kirito could have sworn that the police offer in front of him had wet himself at the sight of the dragon.

A barrage of gunfire from behind them caused Kirito and Asuna to spin around quickly. Several dozen officers were crouched behind their opened car doors firing off .38 caliber revolvers at the dragon, causing it to roar in rage. A quick glance back at the dragon confirmed that the bullets had nearly no effect, as most of them just bounced off the dragons scales harmlessly. The ones that did cause damage were wing and leg shots, neither of which would be significant enough to cripple such an enormous creature.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught a group of media vans filming the entire thing, along with a helicopter using a bottom-mounted camera to get some aerial footage of the dragon.

It seemed the dragon had enough, though, as it craned its neck back and released a torrent of flames at the police officers who tried to jump out of the way. Most of them managed to dodge, but several were killed in the inferno, not to mention the fact that their cars were set ablaze.

Clenching his fists, he turned to Asuna and held the drive out. "Keep that safe, and get those idiots to stop shooting."

"You're not going to..."

He nodded, and then drew both of his swords. If he was honest with himself, he didn't know whether or not he had the capabilities to defeat a dragon in the real world. Asuna's skills would surely have helped, but he didn't want to risk her life when they were still so unfamiliar with their limits.

The dragon glided down to the ground and swiped at the cowering officers with its tail, knocking one of the ladder trucks on its side as it did so. With a battle cry, he put his fear aside and dashed toward the dragon, putting his full strength and speed behind each of his movements.

He couldn't tell exactly how fast he moved, but he reached the dragon almost instantly and leaped into the air, lashing out with Elucidator at the dragon's left shoulder. His flight path was altered as he felt Elucidator sink into the dragons flesh. A wild snap of the dragons body in response to the pain sent him flying up into the sky. As he stabilized himself, he realized that he was falling from four stories up.

Desperate, he glanced around, realizing his back was to a tall building. He spun in the air and waited until he got closer to the ground, then sunk Elucidator and Dark Repulser into the side of the building to slow his descent.

The ease at which the two swords cut through the buildings exterior alarmed him, and he didn't manage to slow as much as he wanted, forcing him to roll as he made contact with the ground. He was going so fast that after the roll he found himself on his feet and running forward. The only consequence of the fall appeared to be some damage to the building and some gravel in his hair from the roll.

With another battle cry, he ran back to the dragon, this time much more wary of any sudden movements. He dodged a swipe from its tail by leaping into the air. He had only meant to jump high enough to dodge the tail that was about a meter in diameter, but he found himself at nearly shoulder level with the dragon.

It tried to swipe him out of the air with its left paw so he cut downwards with Elucidator, meeting the claws with his own blade. A roar of pain and four pitiful stumps remained as he slashed through the claws.

Kirito landed on the ground gracefully and stared at the dragon, observing that it had retracted its head and was returning his stare, seeming confused. It settled on a fire-breath attack, which he easily sidestepped.

The attack left the dragon open to his own counterattack. He went through the motions of a vertical square around the dragon's previously undamaged right leg, severing the entire appendage with four clean strokes of his swords.

Another roar of pain from the dragon accompanied the miniature earthquake it caused as it fell backwards, looking at the stump of its leg in shock and rage. It tried to snap out its neck to bite at him, but he managed to block by crossing his swords. Even with the blades cutting into the dragon's nose, the attack sent Kirito flying back a good ten meters, though he managed to land on his feet.

The dragon was still focused on him, so when a red and white blur appeared on its left flank and struck her rapier into its side, the dragon was as shocked as Kirito. Asuna had moved so quickly that he might have missed her movement if he wasn't watching the area extremely closely to anticipate the dragon's next move.

The dragon roared and reared back in the air, flinging Asuna away, but she appeared to land just fine. Kirito used the distraction to close the distance between them again. With it's underside exposed, Kirito employed the most powerful set of strokes he knew—Eclipse. Though he couldn't actually use the sword skill, he had practiced it so much inside SAO that he was able to execute the twenty-seven hit combo on pure instinct.

His swords cut into the dragons vulnerable underside repeatedly, spewing blood all over the street they fought on. By the end of the combo, the dragon's underbelly looked like it had been through a blender. Pieces of organs fell through the open cuts as it collapsed onto the street.

Seeing it falling towards him, Kirito turned himself ninety-degrees and slashed his swords over his head, cutting through the dragon's neck and instantly ending the creature's life.

As the head crashed to the ground next to him, leaving him standing between the severed head and the body it came from, Kirito staggered backwards. Asuna was at his side in a moment to steady him, asking him if he was okay.

"I'm fine," he replied, panting. "That just took a lot of effort." He took a deep breath, and then wiped his swords on the dragon's non-bloody back. As he sheathed his blades he glanced around, freezing as he realized that the civilians, media, and emergency response people, save for the firefighters that were trying to extinguish the still-burning hole in the ground, were staring at him in shock.

A single man's applause cut through the stunned silence, and then the entire crowd burst into applause and cheers for him and Asuna. As quick as the cheers, begun, the group of news reporters hurried through the crowd and crouched in front of him and Asuna, focusing their cameras on the two strangely-dressed warriors.

Kirito hesitantly glanced at Asuna as several of the reporters thrust microphones forward and began asking questions faster than he or Asuna could have ever answered, even if they wanted to.

"Are you Kirito and Asuna?"

"Why was there a dragon here?"

"How can you move so fast?"

"How are you alive?"

"How do you have copies of your weapons from SAO?"

"Why are you here only two hours after the SAO players woke up?"

The questions continued in that fashion for another minute until Kirito shouted, "Enough!" His voice held enough strength and authority that the reporters flinched and backed up a step, noticing his annoyed expression.

Behind the reporters a group of three large black government-plated SUVs pulled up and men in suits got out. They quickly inspected the situation before making their way towards the besieged Kirito and Asuna.

Before they arrived, Kirito said, "We are indeed Kirito and Asuna. More than that..."

He wasn't really sure what he was going to tell them, but he was cut off as the men in suits stepped between him and Asuna and the reporters. The leader of them, a younger man in a slightly more blueish colored suit, spoke up. "My name is Seijirou Kikuoka. I've been leading the government's SAO incident response team. We will issue a press release at a later time once details of today's events have been understood. Beyond that, Kirito and Asuna are now under our protection and may choose to not answer questions if they wish." He bowed, and turned to Kirito and Asuna.

He spoke to them in a much quieter voice, not speaking loudly enough to be picked up by the reporter's microphones. "It's an honor to meet the two of you. I have my own questions for both of you, as I'm sure you have some for me about why everyone recognizes you. If you'd come with us, we will happily give you any information you desire and reunite you with your families."

"Is there a reason we should trust you?" Kirito asked carefully, trying not to be offensive.

Kikuoka held out a government issued ID. "This is my proof that I am who I say. Beyond that, I've directly associated with your family, Kirito. If you would like, I can call them and let them advise you on whether or not to trust us."

Kirito raised his eyebrows at the offer. There was no way he'd make that offer if he wasn't sure of the result, so Kirito just shook his head. "I want my reunion with them to be in person, not over the phone." He glanced at Asuna, who nodded her approval. "We'll trust you for now, Mr. Kikuoka. However," here his voice dropped into a dead serious tone and he gestured at the dead dragon. "Never forget what we are capable of. My highest priority is to protect Asuna, and I will stop at nothing to meet that end. Betray my trust, or cause any harm to her, and I cannot guarantee my reaction will not be extreme."

Kikuoka bowed deeply, not seeming the least bit frightened by Kirito's words. "Believe me, Mr. Kirigaya. I'm well aware of the lengths you're willing to go to in order to protect the ones you love. I have the utmost respect for you in that sense, and would never want you as an enemy. It's my hope that you'll find me trustworthy, as, in time, there are a great many things that I need to ask you about. For now, though, let's just focus on getting you back with your families, okay?" The middle aged man held out his hand with a smile, and Kirito shook it, smiling back at him.

Kikuoka had his guards clear a path through the crowd, but a reporter tried to barge through, yelling, "Kirito, is there anything you can say to your fans?"

He hesitated, sharing a glance with Asuna. He turned back to the man and took the microphone in his hand. "I'll try to make a statement once I wrap my head around the idea. I didn't know that people were watching me until an hour ago."

With that, he and Asuna, along with the government employees, made their way into the SUVs and drove away, leaving the circus of reporters and fans behind them.


	3. Family

This is what I meant when I said that I'd have to rewrite the chapter 'Worlds Collide' from _Worlds Apart_. It's not too significantly different in the part where Kirito  & Asuna meet their families, but some key things are obviously changed for this story.

As for the chapter itself, it was one of the most annoying things I've ever written (I think this is actually reflected in my writing towards the end). I can't wait until one or two more chapters in when all the relevant people actually know what Kirito knows so they can have normal conversations again.

Family

Kirito leaned back against his leather seat's headrest, closing his eyes and forcing himself to breathe slowly. It was the first time since they had fought the Skull Reaper that he had been able to relax and gather his thoughts.

Asuna had a similar idea, it seemed, as she had rested her head on his shoulder about fifteen minutes earlier. They were sitting in the back of one of the black government SUVs on their way to somewhere. He actually didn't know their destination yet, as Mr. Kikuoka had been talking on his phone constantly since they got into the car. From the sounds of it all, he was trying to reassure his superiors that the whole dragon incident was under control and that him and Asuna were truly alive.

"I want that corpse recovered and brought to our labs immediately. Fly in whatever specialists you need, just get me some answers, and handle all my calls for awhile, okay? I'm going to be busy this evening."

With a sigh, Kikuoka flicked a button on his phone and placed it back in his pocket. "Sorry for that," he said, turning back in the passenger seat to look at the two backseat passengers. "There's a lot of people wanting to know what is going on, but I should be free for now. I had my assistant take over the explanations."

Kirito nodded slightly, opening his eyes to look at Kikuoka. Asuna also yawned and lifted her head from his shoulder, probably to avoid appearing rude. "How much longer is it going to be?" she asked as she glanced around at the buildings they were driving past.

The driver, one of Kikuoka's men, said, "About fifteen more minutes, ma'am."

There was an awkward silence for a good minute, and then Kikuoka smiled at them. "Alright, you can ask me whatever you want. I need to know some things from you, but they can wait awhile. You just woke up from a two year long ordeal, so let me know what you want, and I'll do my best to help."

"Can you tell us about our families?" Kirito asked softly, glancing down.

"Of course. I've met your mother and sister quite a few times over the last two years. They took your absence pretty hard, and I know that Suguha was really stressed out from watching the stream as much as she could. Other than that, they're fine, and I'm sure they really want to see you." He shook his head. "I'm not sure they even know you're alive. The last thing we saw on the stream was the two of you dying. If they haven't turned on a TV, they probably don't know that you survived."

Kirito glanced out the window. "Could you please bring them to where we're going?"

The man nodded, fiddling with his phone briefly as he texted someone. "Done. One of my men will swing by and pick them up. How about you, Asuna? Would you like me to have your family come too?"

Asuna shook her head. "They'll come if they want, I guess. Please at least let them know that I'm alive, alright?" Kirito wondered at her reluctant tone, but decided not to press it right now.

With another nod, and another text message, Kikuoka said, "I'm sure they want to see you. They visited you occasionally, and I'm aware that they met with Kirito's family to discuss the two of you getting married. Mrs. Kirigaya then contacted me and asked me to use my resources to make your marriage official in the real world, and I did."

"Wait, what?" Kirito demanded, sitting up much straighter. "We're married in the real world? Really?"

Kikuoka smiled. "Yeah. Your parents both agreed."

Asuna laughed in delight, turning to Kirito and embracing him just as he made to do the same thing with her. "I'm so glad...I thought it would be so hard to convince my mother to accept you, Kirito."

Kirito laughed in joy as well, holding her close to him. No matter how much he loved her, even though they both agreed that their relationship wasn't only virtual, it was still such a relief to know that Asuna was so happy about being married to him in the real world.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, and then they finally separated and leaned back on their seats. Kirito sighed in exhaustion. "This has been such a long day..."

He glanced down as he felt Asuna intertwine her fingers with his own. "Yeah, but it's not over yet. Mr. Kikuoka, can you please explain this stream thing in detail to us, as we only heard about it in the last couple hours..."

A guilty expression crossed his face as he averted his eyes. "Firstly, you should know that it was my decision to allow this to exist. I don't apologize for my actions, as I feel they were for the greater good, but I _am_ sorry that your privacy was violated in the process, Kirito."

He nodded, "Go on."

"Ah..." he sighed. "Well, a few months into SAO we discovered a terminal in one of Kayaba's laboratories that's purpose was to monitor your progress through the game. Kayaba's reasoning for picking you must be that you were the highest ranked beta-tester, so it's natural that he took a bit of an interest in you." He shook his head. "Anyway, it took us another couple months to figure out how to stream the footage through various media, such as TV and the Amusphere—the Nerve Gear replacement. At that point, anyone could tune in and watch a third person view of you as you played through SAO. If you had an Amusphere, you could load up the surroundings as holograms and it was like you were actually there beside you in the game."

"And this was _always_ on?" Kirito asked tentatively.

Kikuoka nodded. "The only time we ever took the stream offline was during your uh...intimate...night. Other than that, as of six months into the game, people were able to follow your every step and encounter. Hundreds of thousands of people were tuned in at any given point, with that number jumping into the millions—even tens of millions—for boss battles or important events. I wouldn't be surprised if your fight with Heathcliff at the end had at least a hundred million viewers worldwide."

"That many..." he moaned. Asuna squeezed his hand in response, trying to let him know that it was okay.

"Yeah. With viewing numbers like those, you can imagine how many are talking about you on the internet. There's compilation videos of your heroics, analysis articles and videos on your fighting style, and pretty much any other form of discussion you could imagine."

Kirito took a deep breath, trying to keep himself from going insane. "Do they know my real identity?"

Kikuoka shrugged. "I'm sure some people do, but it hasn't been on the news or any of the major forums yet. Your sister mentioned that some of the people at her kendo class and school are aware that she's your sister."

He allowed himself several minutes to process all of the information. When he did, he found that he couldn't fault Kikuoka for doing what he did. If anything, the blame had to be put on Kayaba for his role in creating the stream. Also, perhaps most importantly, there was absolutely nothing he or anyone else could do about it at this point. Holding it against Kikuoka wouldn't benefit anyone. In fact, Kikuoka's attitude towards the entire thing went a long way towards making Kirito trust him, at least somewhat.

With that decided, Kirito said, "Okay, so what now?"

"Pardon?"

"Where exactly are we going, and what will happen when we get there?"

Kikuoka seemed relieved that Kirito had dropped the business about the stream, at least for the moment. "We're going to one of our safe-houses. Your bodies were kept there in secret for the recent past. There were several death threats, some coming from families of players that you arrested or killed. For your safety, your body was moved to a safe-house, along with anyone who appeared on your stream for a decent duration of time. I may have set that stream up, but there's no way I was going to let it become the cause for more murders."

"Our bodies are dead though, aren't they?" Asuna asked, smiling slightly.

At that, Kikuoka scratched his head. "Yeah...you're going to need to explain that to me at some point, along with this whole dragon business."

Kirito chuckled as they pulled into the driveway of a normal looking house in a suburb. "If we're being honest here, Asuna and I don't really know all of the details that you want to know."

They drove into the garage and closed the door before Kikuoka responded to Kirito's statement. "How much exactly do you know, then?"

Asuna met his gaze at that question. He leaned over to whisper in her ear. "Do you think we should trust him?"

She glanced at Kikuoka, then whispered back, "Yeah...but can we be absolutely sure that he isn't Kayaba's partner?"

Kirito hesitated there. Granted, it was extremely unlikely that out of all the possible people, Kikuoka was Kayaba's partner. An easy way of testing it presented itself to him, so he gave Asuna a brief nod. The driver had gotten out to turn the lights on, so he said, "Kayaba spoke to us after our fight, telling us that he worked with a partner in the real world. He's an American scientist named Jim Davis. He told us that we could find him and shake any answers we wanted out from him."

The timing couldn't have been more perfect as the driver turned the lights on. Kikuoka had a shocked and dismayed expression with a hand on his forehead. "God dammit. You've got to be kidding. We checked anyone with any sort of connection to Kayaba and couldn't find any relation. Are you sure he had an American partner?"

Kirito shook his head, satisfied with the reaction. "No, actually I have no idea who his partner is. The American part was to see how you reacted to Kayaba having a partner. If you were his partner, you wouldn't have pressed the American issue, as it provided a way to shift suspicion. The part about him having a partner is true, though."

"Hmm..." Kikuoka mused, getting out of the car. "Does this mean that you've decided to trust me, then?"

He and Asuna got out as well, and Kirito took a moment to stretch his legs. "Yeah, so it seems. We know quite a bit more than I just told you, but it'd take awhile to explain. Also, Asuna and I need to talk privately about a couple of things before we start sharing with you. There's still a lot that we haven't gotten the chance to discuss with one another."

Kikuoka dipped his head in a slight bow. "I understand. Just don't take too long, alright? My superiors are going to be on my ass until I can assure them that the situation is under control."

There wasn't really much Kirito or Asuna could say in reply, so they made their way into the house together. The garage led to a laundry room equipped with a washer and dryer. That laundry room led to a long 'L' shaped hallway. Three bedrooms were to the left, while bathrooms and closets lined the right side. The first bedroom was unused, only having a bed and basic furniture. The second and third were filled with a wide assortment of medical equipment. Perhaps most unsettling was that he and Asuna—or rather their old bodies—were laying in the beds of each room. Asuna was in the second room, while Kirito's body was in the furthest room, which appeared to be the master bedroom.

It was more than a little unsettling to see his dead body occupying a bed. Both his and Asuna's bodies were thin and decrepit. He briefly wondered how miserable it might have been to wake up in such a weak state.

He unconsciously clasped hands with Asuna as they passed the first room. She was surely having her own confused thoughts about what they were seeing.

Perhaps it was fortunate that another middle-aged man came out of the master bedroom wearing a white lab coat and glasses. "Ah," Kikuoka said. "This is Dr. Tamayo. He's our resident doctor who's been responsible for making sure you and the others under our care are in good health." He gestured at Kirito and Asuna. "Tamayo, this is Kirito and Asuna."

"So it's true..." the doctor mumbled. He tilted his head. "You _are_ truly Kazuto Kirigaya and Asuna Yuuki, correct?"

Kirito nodded dumbly before Kikuoka chuckled and waved his hand dismissively. "I know you've got your questions, but they'll have to wait. I'm not a doctor, but they both appear to be in good enough shape for now. Perhaps we can do some tests tomorrow." He glanced at Kirito in search of approval for the statement.

Kirito shrugged at that. "I don't know. Sure, I guess? I mean, we're not going to be lab rats or anything, but if you need to run a few basic tests then that should be alright."

"Fair enough," Kikuoka said. "With that decided, I want you to move their dead bodies to our office. Keep them on ice if you want to do tests or whatever you need, but just get them out of here before either of their families arrive."

"Understood," Tamayo replied with a bow. Despite his obedience, Kirito felt like the doctor was irritated with their flippant attitude towards his expertise. They had good reason, though. If what Kayaba and Cardinal told them was at all true, it was doubtful that their new bodies were the same as normal humans. In fact, Kirito thought that they'd probably get more useful information from Cardinal than the doctor.

During his brief musing, Kikuoka had instructed the driver to assist the doctor in getting rid of the two bodies. Not wanting to stick around to watch, he took Asuna's hand and turned to the right down the hall, causing Kikuoka to follow just behind them.

On their right was an entrance area for the house's front door that opened into a large living room furnished with several reclining chairs and a couch. A large flat screen TV was mounted on the wall that the chairs faced, along with a coffee table between the two. Meanwhile, the left side of the hall opened into the kitchen and a dining area—though it seemed to go mostly unused. Any evidence of food was in the form of popcorn and potato chip crumbs scattered aimlessly through the living room.

As if to confirm what he was thinking, Kikuoka said, "Most of the time my men just relax here when they're on duty. One or two of them are usually here to keep the house safe, but I sent them away for now. I'm not really sure what kind of protection they could offer the two of you with what I saw you do earlier."

He and Asuna each took one of the reclining chairs that faced the TV and Kikuoka sat in a chair that had a reasonable view of both of them. "So," Asuna said a minute later, glancing over at Kikuoka. "How long until Kirito's family gets here?"

After checking his phone for the time, Kikuoka said, "Should be about five or ten minutes, I suppose. Depends on how fast my guy drives." He chuckled.

Kirito sighed at hearing that, suddenly feeling apprehensive about meeting Suguha. He leaned forward so he could remove his two swords. Before he could put them on the ground, Kikuoka got up and walked over. "Could I see one of them?" he asked.

With a shrug, Kirito handed him Elucidator and then dropped Dark Repulser on the ground unceremoniously. As he settled into a more comfortable position, noting that Asuna had also taken off her rapier, he watched Kikuoka unsheathe the black sword and turn it over once or twice.

"This sword is beyond famous, you know," he said, sheathing the blade and setting it on the ground gently beside Dark Repulser. "Several sword smiths have tried to recreate the blade with pretty good success, but I can't recall seeing a higher quality version of the sword than what you have." He glanced at Lambient Light. "I have to admit that I'm dying to know how you got them into the real world." He returned to his seat with a sigh.

He really wanted to just relax for the few minutes he had before his family arrived, but Kirito said, "Kayaba refined the American's research on creating objects in reality that matched their virtual counterparts. From my understanding, it's just high-tech 3-D printing. Anyway, the swords and our gear were waiting for us when we woke up in the ARGUS labs."

"Hmm, and I'm guessing this partner of Kayaba's was responsible for dealing with all of this stuff in the real world, right?"

"More or less, to my understanding. Kayaba said that his partner betrayed him about a week ago, which is probably why he told me and Asuna about the whole thing in the first place."

"But he didn't tell you who his partner was...?"

Asuna grunted at that. "Nope. The bastard does love his games, doesn't he?"

Kikuoka rolled his eyes. "It does appear so."

"Oh," Kirito said abruptly. "I suppose we should mention that it was Kayaba's partner that was responsible for that dragon attacking earlier. When we cleared the game he must have been afraid that the government, you guys, would find Kayaba's research."

"Since we're being honest," Kikuoka said, glancing away in embarrassment. "We didn't even know that there was an underground lab below the ARGUS headquarters until that dragon burned it to ashes. It wasn't on any blueprints and there was no obvious entrance to it. What exactly was down there, anyway?"

A car door being closed outside saved Kirito from having to explain as Kikuoka sighed. "Ah, never mind. Your family is here. We'll continue this later." He got out of his chair and walked over to the front door, opening it and beckoning the people outside to come in.

Kirito obviously couldn't see out the door, but Kikuoka gestured to his left, towards where he and Asuna were sitting, and almost immediately a short black-haired girl stepped into the house with her gaze already fixed at where Kikuoka was pointing. She stood there for a moment as she stared directly at Kirito, and then broke out in tears as she ran to him crying out, "Big brother!"

Suguha jumped onto the chair with her brother and hugged him tightly. Despite how tightly she held him, he couldn't help but feel relieved as he wrapped his own arms around her as she cried into his chest. Her clear and evident relief at seeing him alive was more than enough for him to be sure that he'd be able to repair his relationship with her.

Despite his relief, the only thing that came out of his mind was, "Hey, Sugu, it's been awhile, eh?"

As he said that he noticed his mother enter the house as well. Her expression was also strained, and her eyes were red as if she had also been crying. None of that mattered though as he saw her face transform into utter relief and happiness as she saw him alive and well.

Midori approached them as Suguha sat up on his lap and looked into his eyes. "That's the best you've got?" she demanded, now laughing as she wiped her eyes. "It's been awhile?"

He smiled at her and his mother, who had gotten close enough to take one of his hands in her own. "I'm not sure what to say. Asuna and I heard about the stream thing so..." he glanced down.

Midori embraced him them, pulling Sugu into the hug as well. "Hey mom," he simply said, smiling at her as she released him and his sister.

She also had to wipe tears from her eyes as she glanced from her son to Asuna, who was watching the encounter with a longing smile. "I'm so relieved that you're okay. When we saw you fight Heathcliff...we thought..."

"That we died?" he asked softly, glancing at Asuna.

"I'll give you guys a bit of time," Kikuoka said as he gave a slight bow and then walked back down the hallway towards the bedrooms.

Ignoring that he had left, Midori turned her attention to Asuna, who dipped her head in a respectful greeting. "It's also a pleasure to meet the one girl my son has ever taken an interest in. Thank you for being there for him, Asuna. It truly means more than you can imagine."

Asuna blushed slightly as she bowed a bit further, shaking her head from side to side. "I wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for Kirito, so I understand exactly how important he is to you, Mrs. Kirigaya."

Now it was Kirito's turn to blush as he glanced down. He knew that Asuna felt that way, but he privately believed that she was more than strong enough to have survived on his own. Oftentimes in SAO he found himself envying her work ethic and dedication, even if it annoyed him at other times.

It looked like Midori was going to reply to Asuna's last comment, but she was cut off as Suguha's cell phone rang loudly.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, leaning back on Kirito's lap to grab her phone from her pocket. She seemed to debate internally for a moment about whether or not to answer the call, and then said, "Sorry...it's a friend who was watching the last fight with us. He's probably worried sick about me and mom..."

Kirito gave her a nod of encouragement, so she answered the call.

"LEAFA!" came a screeching voice through the speaker. Kirito must have been a few feet away and he still heard it perfectly clearly, though admittedly he didn't understand what the name meant. Sugu winced and moved the phone a bit back, flicking on the speakerphone setting as she did so.

"Jeez, Recon! Don't shout!" Ironically, she was now the one shouting at him.

"Sorry! Where are you? I came over to make sure you were okay when the stream went down, but you don't seem to be home...you know Kirito and Asuna showed up in the real world and killed a dragon...right!?"

"Ehh...yeah I'm fine," was her response. Kirito was caught off guard as she flicked the button to turn her phone's camera on. "See?" she said. "I'm fine."

"But-" her friend began, but froze as Suguha tilted her phone so that Kirito and Asuna came into view.

"And so are they," she added with a smirk.

"Uhm...hello?" Kirito replied uncertainly as he gave Suguha a questioning look.

It took the kid a good minute to fully comprehend what he was seeing. "W-Wait...is that...really them? Kirito and-"

"Yeah, I'll call you later." She abruptly hung the call up as a whining sound came through the speakers. Kirito thought that it might have been a little rude, but they were clearly close friends so he let it pass. Besides, he probably wasn't in the greatest position to criticize her for being rude, given his reputation in SAO.

"Sorry, he's a friend from school," she explained to them.

Midori laughed at how embarrassed Suguha looked over the entire thing. Probably in an attempt to change the topic, Suguha dipped her head towards Asuna and greeted her formally. "I'm sorry I didn't greet you earlier, Mrs. Asuna."

Asuna waved her hand dismissively. "I would have done the same in your position, I'm sure. Besides, if what Kikuoka told us is true, we're family now, right? There's no need for rigid formalities."

Kirito's attention was stolen by his mother as she nudged his shoulder. "Hey, kiddo, wanna let us know why the two of you are in your SAO outfits and why we watched you kill a dragon on the news just now?"

"It's _really_ complicated," he said with a sigh. "For now, let's just say that Kayaba changed us into our SAO avatars in real life. Beyond that...it's probably better not to talk about the rest of it. If people knew the specifics..."

Both Midori and Suguha seemed to get the message as they didn't press the topic more. Suguha just hugged him again and said, "Whatever, I'm just glad you're back. You gotta' promise me one thing though!"

"Huh?"

"No more close calls with death, alright?" She shook her head and her voice suddenly sounded much more tired and stressed. "Mom and I have had to watch you almost die way too many times for one lifetime."

He chuckled. "I promise that I'll try to not almost die, alright? That's the best I can do, knowing my luck." In reality, he only said that for her benefit, as he wasn't sure how his mission to track down Kayaba's partner would go. If he had already created a dragon to cover his tracks, there was no telling how far he'd go to stop him and Asuna. His words had the desired effect, though, as Suguha smiled and visibly relaxed at hearing those words and the slight joking tone that he used.

A knock on the door grabbed all of their attention. Since Midori was closest, she said, "One sec."

She peered through the peephole in the door and then smiled as she opened it. "Hello, Mr. & Mrs. Yuuki, Kouichirou." As he realized who she was greeting, he looked back at Asuna and saw her sitting fully upright with a shocked expression on her face. She had told him that she and her family didn't get along too well, but he still found it surprising that she didn't think they would have visited her after two years of being trapped in a virtual world.

The three people his mother had greeted stepped into the house then, hurriedly scanning the room to find Asuna. They were clearly from the upper class, as all three of them wore high quality suits. More telling, though, was how confidently they carried themselves. The oldest, who must have been her father, appeared to be in his late fifties or even early sixties, while his wife looked to be around forty or forty-five. The youngest of the three must have been her brother, Kouichirou. He looked like he was about thirty.

"Asuna!" Kouichirou called out as he ran to her and hugged her tightly, though not quite as aggressively as Suguha had done with him.

"Kouichirou..." Asuna replied, tears forming in her eyes. Her mother and father were only a few steps behind the younger man as they hugged her as well. "Mom...dad...you both came..."

"Of course we came, Asuna," her father said sadly.

Her mother began crying as she hugged her daughter. "I'm so sorry, Asuna. The fact that it's even a surprise that we're here is all my fault...can you forgive me?"

Kirito had thought he had seen true shock when he had exposed Kayaba's identity earlier that day, but even that revelation didn't match how confused Asuna looked as her mother apologized to her. He privately wished that he understood what was going on so that he could be some sort of a comfort to the both of them, but Asuna hadn't ever told him exactly what was wrong between her and her parents.

The four of them all apologized to each other for a good five minutes. From their expressions, Kirito gathered that Midori and Suguha both understood what was happening, at least somewhat, which left him as the only one in the dark. He didn't dare interrupt their reunion for his own benefit, though.

At the end of their moment, Kouichirou took Asuna's hands in his own and knelt before her. "I'm so sorry...Asuna. It's all my fault that you were trapped there...it was supposed to be me."

Asuna shook her head with a wide smile on her face. "No, no...please don't blame yourself. I'm glad it happened..."

"...?"

"Because I met Kirito there," she explained, turning to look at him as he chuckled.

Kouichirou stood back up and nodded to her, then faced Kirito. "Mr. Kirigaya, I speak for all three of us when I thank you for taking care of Asuna."

Kirito's glance passed over each of the Yuuki family members briefly before he dipped his head in response. "It's a pleasure to meet you, and we like to say that we were there for each other. She helped me just as much as I helped her, perhaps more."

Her father walked over and shook Kirito's hand firmly. "Even so, we're still grateful." He shook his head, and then smiled. "Goodness me! I haven't even introduced myself to my own son-in-law. Where are my manners? My name is Shouzou Yuuki. This is Kyouko, my wife, and our son Kouichirou." The other two family members bowed respectfully to him.

Kirito did the best version of a bow that he could do from his chair while Suguha still sat on his lap, and then replied with, "And I'm Kazuto Kirigaya. I'm glad to meet you all."

"Oh!" Asuna exclaimed from behind them. "Dad, you should tell Kirito about the company."

"Hmm? Alright...I suppose. Is there a particular reason?" She nodded, but didn't otherwise reply, so her father sighed and did as she asked. "I'm the CEO of a company called RECT Progress. My son works closely with me there. We're similar to Kayaba's company in that we develop VR technology, including the new Amusphere that people are using as a replacement for the Nerve Gear. We also run an MMO called Alfheim Online which we created using SAO's code."

"Ah..." Kirito mused, understanding why Asuna asked for her father to explain what his business was. If RECT had anywhere near the resources of ARGUS, they could prove immensely helpful in dealing with Cardinal later on. It wasn't as if he could just plug the drive he carried into any computer and run her program, as she likely would require extremely high processing power to function. The servers necessary to host a VRMMO could easily provide that level of power.

When Kirito didn't reply further than that, Kyouko picked up Lambient Light from the ground and inspected the sword. "How did you get this in the real world, Asuna?"

Asuna rolled her eyes. "That question is getting so old," she said with a chuckle. "The explanation Kirito and I are using for now is that it's all Kayaba's doing. The specifics are really complicated, and I don't understand them too well. Kirito is still trying to wrap his head around them himself."

Kirito glanced up as Shouzou laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't hesitate to ask for help if you need it, son. I don't pretend to understand all the things going on right now, what with you being stronger than anyone I've ever seen despite being asleep for two years, or you and Asuna killing a dragon together. I do, however, have an entire division of highly educated scientists working in my R&D department who would kill for the chance to make sense of what has happened in the last few hours."

"Thank you, sir," Kirito said, bowing his head respectfully. In return, he received a pat on the shoulder as Shouzou removed his hand.

Asuna's family seemed so nice to him. He wondered what he gone so wrong between them in the past that made Asuna feel so disconnected from them. Then again, he had his own issues with his family beforehand that caused him distress, so he couldn't blame her for feeling the way she did. The important part is that it all worked out in the end.

With all of the introductions finished, Kirito and Asuna watched as his family spoke with Asuna's family about what had happened in the last day. Privately, he tried to keep his head from spinning. Keeping track of what pieces of information he had told each person was becoming a huge strain. He really needed to sort out exactly what was going on, and quickly, or he feared he might get buried under the weight of all the secrets.

As if he didn't already have enough to worry about, Kikuoka walked back into the room with a worried expression on his face. "Hi, sorry to interrupt. Kirito...Asuna, could I speak with you in the other room for a minute?"

Asuna groaned, perfectly summing up Kirito's own feelings on the request. Even so, he wasn't about to deny it without a good reason. "Alright," he replied with a reluctant nod, causing Kikuoka to return the nod and walk back out of the room towards the kitchen.

Suguha yelped in surprise as he placed his hands on either side of her waist and lifted her off of him with relative ease. He gently dropped her in the chair with a wink, and then said, "Alright, we'll be back in a minute, I suppose. Sorry."

He and Asuna meandered into the kitchen to find a pacing Kikuoka waiting for them. "What's wrong?" Asuna demanded.

Kikuoka stopped pacing and looked straight at them. "Exactly three hundred SAO players haven't woken up yet."


	4. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence

There was a loud _thud!_ as Kirito's slammed his fist on the counter, cracking the granite counter in a wide circle around where his fist made contact with the surface. Only a moment later, his hand was being held by Asuna as she forced him to release his fist so that she could see his hand. There was no sign of any damage, though the bottom part of his hand was a little bit more pink than usual.

"Jeez," she said, letting his hand go with a sigh. "Don't scare me like that."

He shook his head, keeping an eye on Kikuoka, who was watching them. "Sorry...sorry. It's just...I thought we had at least finished SAO, even if there were other problems. Exactly three hundred people being 'asleep' still can't be a coincidence. Kayaba's partner is up to something, and we have no idea what it is."

In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Kirito could have sworn that he heard several soft footsteps outside the door. It seemed that some, or all of the people in the living room had heard the smash and were trying to figure out what was going on. _Oh well,_ he thought. If three hundred players were still being held captive by Kayaba's partner then there wouldn't be much sense in keeping it all secret much longer.

Turning back to Kikuoka, he took a deep breath before carefully asking, "You're absolutely certain that _exactly_ three hundred players are still unconscious, and that they show no signs whatsoever of waking?" He didn't bother to keep his voice down. If his family and Asuna's were listening from outside, then good for them.

"Positive," was his reply. "Before I drove out to meet the two of you, my office was tracking about a thousand people that were still waking up. However, all of those except for the three hundred in question finished waking up over two hours ago. There have been no changes in their vital signs or any indicators on their Nerve Gears."

Kirito scratched his head. "I can't imagine why Kayaba would need to keep them..." he muttered, speaking more to Asuna than Kikuoka.

"Or Cardinal," she added. "It has to be Kayaba's partner."

"Doesn't it strike you as odd that he only stole about a hundred host bodies, yet kidnapped three hundred players, though?"

"Maybe the two things aren't related...?"

Could she have been right? Was it possible that another party was involved., that someone else somehow gained access to the SAO players and kept them from waking? The idea seemed preposterous, and it surely couldn't have happened without Cardinal or Kayaba becoming aware of it. Even if someone else did somehow gain access to the system, what good would three hundred unconscious SAO players do them? Was it an attempt to ransom them off? If so, why hadn't Kikuoka's men received any demands yet? No...the more he considered it, the more likely it was that Kayaba's partner was responsible.

Perhaps though...he hesitated at the thought. It was so far-fetched, but worth looking into. "Do you have a list of their names?" he asked Kikuoka.

Kikuoka shrugged. "Yeah, of course. It's their real names though, not their avatar ones. It might take awhile to match them all up. Why?"

Asuna answered for him, clearly understanding what his thought process was. "It's possible that if the players were related in some way inside the game that it could provide a clue as to who is holding them prisoner, right Kirito?"

"Theoretically, yeah, I suppose. It's a pretty big long shot, as I'd be willing to bet it's Kayaba's partner that's behind this, but maybe knowing which players he chose could give us a clue as to why."

Kikuoka handed them his phone. "This is the list of their names, ages, genders, and addresses. Anything jump out at you?"

Kirito flicked his finger upwards, scrolling through the list quickly. He didn't recognize any of the names, though that didn't mean they weren't players that he knew. Perhaps most importantly was that the distribution of ages and genders seemed too balanced to be random.

"They aren't all clearers," he mentioned. "Too many girls on the list. The clearers were like eighty or ninety percent male. This list is close to fifty-fifty. Also, most of the clearing group were young to middle-aged. There's people as young as ten years old there, and people as old as sixty." He flicked a button and handed the phone back to Kikuoka. "Look at how evenly distributed their age group is."

"You're right..." he whispered. "There's never less than two of any age, yet never more than ten. For the groups of two, it's always one male and one female. What are the odds of that if you randomly selected three hundred people from Aincrad?" He shook his head. "So what, though? What does this mean? That they were individually selected...?"

"If you were going to run an experiment, wouldn't you want to test with as many different variables as possible?"

"So they're basically lab rats?"

Kirito shrugged. "I can't say for sure. That's just my theory. But...I do have someone that we could ask."

"...?"

He sighed, and then retrieved the storage drive from his coat's inner pocket. "This drive might hold the answers we need."

"Then by all means let's check it out," Kikuoka said, eyes wide with relief.

Kirito shook his head and held up his other hand in a stop-sign signal. "It's not that simple. This drive has the core data of the AI that managed SAO for Kayaba, Cardinal. She also acted as his personal researcher, running data and experiments faster than any team of humans could."

"An AI? Like, a fully functional one?"

Kirito nodded. "She has emotions and self-awareness. Definitely what would be considered a sentient being." He hesitated, then added, "She created Yui, if that gives you any idea how real her emotions can be."

"I understand...but I don't know why that matters. Can't you plug the drive in and ask her your questions?"

Kirito shook his head. "She could cause a catastrophic amount of damage if she got access to an open network. I haven't been able to verify that her intentions are good. In the few minutes we talked to her upon waking up she admitted to being the one that killed the players who died in SAO, though she claimed it was a hard-coded directive from Kayaba that forced her to do it."

"Do you think you can control her?"

At that, Kirito hesitated. "Maybe. I think with the help of Asuna's family the chances would be higher, though."

"Well," Kikuoka said, clapping his hands once. "As you once said, I'd rather trust you and regret it than regret not trusting you. What do you need from me?"

"I don't know," Kirito admitted with a chuckle. "Asuna, do you think your dad would let us use his resources for this?"

She shrugged. "I can't see why he wouldn't. He seems to like you, and he did tell you to ask him for help if you needed it, right?"

"Let's go then," he replied, nodding to her and putting the drive back into his pocket.

He stepped back into the hall to find both his and Asuna's families scurrying back into the living room to remain undetected. Laughing, he held up a hand and said, "Please, I heard you from the start. How much did you all hear about what we were talking about?"

They all had guilty expressions on, but Kyouko seemed to be the one least embarrassed. She said, "We heard parts of it, some stuff about a list of players that haven't woken up yet and an AI that you need to talk to."

"Well, that about covers it. Asuna and I need to go deal with this problem, as exactly three hundred SAO players haven't woken yet. We suspect that it's the work of an unknown partner of Kayaba's. This drive," he briefly showed it to them, "contains the data from the AI that ran SAO, Cardinal. She may be able to help, but we need a controlled environment to ask her in, as we aren't really sure what her allegiances are at this point."

"Is that why you had us tell Kirito about the company?" Asuna's brother asked her.

"Yeah, basically."

"What can we do to help?" Suguha asked, walking up to Kirito with a determined expression on her face.

Kirito scratched his head. "Well, we need the infrastructure of Mr. Yuuki's company to wake Cardinal safely. Beyond that, I have no idea where this is going to lead to."

"You'll have anything you need," Shouzou said, dipping his head.

"Thank you, Mr. Yuuki. We should probably start heading to the company now. Hopefully we can come up with a plan of action on the way there."

"You're going now?" Suguha demanded, glancing down and clasping her hands before her. "I just got you back..."

She looked up into his eyes as he laid a hand on her shoulder. "You can come if you want, as long as there's enough seats in the car. Okay, mom?"

Midori nodded, smiling now. "Of course. I mean, I'd like to go too, but I don't think we can fit everyone here into any of our cars."

"My SUVs seat seven," Kikuoka commented. "Though, six would be far more comfortable. If we took me, Kirito, Asuna, Kouchirou, Shouzou, and Suguha we'd fit just fine."

Kyouko nodded at that. "I wouldn't be much help anyway, so that's fine with me. Honestly, I should probably check in at the office before the day is over, as I left in a hurry to get here."

Asuna seemed to hesitate for a moment, then walked over to her mother and hugged her. "Be safe, mother."

Kirito couldn't help but smile as he saw Asuna's mother break out into a grin. "You too, honey."

With everyone except his own mother settled, Kirito said, "How about you, mom? What are you going to do?"

"Hmm...I need to go back to work too. I took the afternoon off to watch the stream with Sugu, so I really need to put some hours in now that I know you're okay." He expected the answer, as his mother and father seemingly worked through all hours of the day. Still, he was a little sad that she wasn't able to tag along.

He instinctively felt himself returning her hug as she approached him. "Take care of your sister, okay Kirito?"

He frowned a little as he pulled back from the embrace. "Even though I've been called it for the last two years, it'll take me awhile to get used to you using that name."

Midori laughed at that. "Yeah, I understand. It took me awhile to stop calling you Kazuto as well, but Kirito is who you are now, so it fits."

"I completely agree," Asuna said, smiling.

Rolling his eyes, he walked over to the chairs and picked up his two swords, strapping them onto his back. He tossed Asuna Lambient Light, and then they all made their way out of the house, Midori and Kyouko through the front exit and the rest through the garage.

The seating arrangements in the SUV went about as Kirito had expected. Shouzou was driving, with Kikuoka sitting in the passenger seat. Kouichirou and Suguha shared the back seat, while he and Asuna took the two in the middle, given their need for more space because of their swords.

The half hour drive to RECT Progress's building provided Kirito and Asuna with sufficient time to summarize all of the things that Kayaba had told them, and the brief interaction they had with Cardinal upon waking up. By the time they pulled into a reserved parking spot just outside the entrance of RECT Progress, everyone was up to speed on what was going on.

Fortunately, since it was nearly seven in the evening, most of the employees had already left. They didn't attract any attention in the parking lot, and there was nobody in the front lobby except for the two security guards manning the front desk.

They walked past the surprised guards quickly, with Shouzou instructing them to keep this particular visit off the logs. One or two researchers were in the hallways, but other than that they made their way through the building relatively unseen. Finally, at the back of the building, they came to a massive server room.

It looked pretty similar to the ARGUS server room from earlier in the day, though there did appear to be more rows of servers than ARGUS had. To the right of the entrance was a small room with a bunch of status screens that were monitored by a middle-aged man who had frozen in shock as he saw the people entering his area.

Kouichirou stepped in to talk to him, saying, "Mr. Akio, we're going to need you to set up a few things for us, alright?"

"Y-Yes sir!" He bowed deeply in respect.

Kouichirou extended a hand to Kirito, prompting him for the drive. He handed it over, and then Kouichirou placed it on the table in front of Akio. "This drive contains the first fully self-aware artificial intelligence that has ever been developed. She was responsible for a large part of the SAO incident, and we need to question her about it. We need to plug her into an isolated server so that we can analyze her core code and question her without giving her the opportunity to access open networks, as we cannot be sure what the result of that would be."

"You're...serious?" Akio asked carefully. When Kouichirou nodded, the man paled a little. "Uh...right away, sir! I can make that happen...I think." He hesitated, then asked, "Uh, sir? Why does it look like Kirito and Asuna are here...and a little girl?"

"Hey, I'm fifteen!" Suguha protested.

Shouzou chuckled as he stepped forward as well. "Well, they are here. More than that is beyond your pay grade."

Akio bowed to Shouzou, and then said clearly trying to contain his disappointment, "I understand." He fiddled with one of his status screens. "We have thirty-six unused servers at the back. Without taking down Alfheim, I can probably isolate fifteen or twenty of them with the spare cables we have lying around. Will that be enough?"

Kouichirou glanced back at Kirito, who could only shrug and say, "Probably."

They watched in silence as Akio fiddled with a half-dozen windows as he tried to configure what they had asked for. Partway through, he got up and ran to the back of the server room, disappearing for several minutes. When he came back he was panting, but he clicked a button on the screen and fist-pumped. "Got it! This system is now powered by eighteen of our servers. There is no way to access the open networks through them, so I think we're good."

"Well done, Mr. Akio," Shouzou complimented. "Take a break for awhile, but please stick around for now, as we may need more assistance later." Akio bowed again, and then walked out the door in a hurry.

"Here goes nothing," Kirito muttered as he hooked the drive up to an external port on the computer.

The half-dozen status screens flashed about ten seconds after he plugged the drive in. Then, the security camera in the corner of the room turned a little to see the entire group of people. "Hello, Kirito," came Cardinal's artificial-sounding voice from the speakers on the desk.

Kirito nodded at the camera. "Are you aware of who these people are?"

"Asuna, Leafa, Seijirou Kikuoka, Shouzou Yuuki, Kouichirou Yuuki."

"Huh?" he asked, glancing back. "Who the hell is Leafa?"

" **Player ID:** 0x0037317D **Alias:** Leafa **Age:** 15 **Name:** Suguha Kirigaya. You requested that I call people by their alias."

Kirito and Asuna both looked back at Suguha, who was glancing down in embarrassment. "Suguha?" he asked curiously.

"I play ALO...but how does Cardinal know that?"

To say that he was surprised would be an understatement, but he had much more important things to deal with at the time. With a nod of understanding to her, he returned his attention to the screen in front of him that was suddenly populated by data about Suguha's ALO character, Leafa. She had golden hair in-game with pointy ears and emerald green eyes. Her green and white outfit matched her eyes almost perfectly.

With another grunt of surprise, he said, "How do you have access to this information? You are supposed to be on a closed network."

"I did a full research profile for both you and Asuna before I made the decision to trust you with what amounts to my life."

Asuna sighed. "Fine, whatever. Do you know why were are here, now?"

"I presume that you wish to ask me for information. My original expectation was that Kirito would wait for up to one full week before deciding to do anything with my data."

 _An entire week?_ he asked himself, surprised by the number. Did Cardinal really think he was _that_ lazy. _Eh, maybe it's not so inaccurate,_ he couldn't help but admit.

"Three hundred players have yet to wake up from SAO," Kikuoka cut in. "We want to know what you know about it."

Cardinal was silent for a full three minutes as she processed the information. The group of six waited patiently for an answer that was ultimately disappointing. "I've reviewed all of my data from every SAO player. I can confirm that the command to log each player out was successfully sent. From my information, there is no reason for them to not have woken up normally."

Unhappy with the answer, Kirito had Kikuoka get out his phone and slowly scroll through the list of names in full view of the camera, giving Cardinal the opportunity to see the same data he had earlier. While the list was shown, he explained his observations as well.

"Intriguing," Cardinal admitted. "I have cross-referenced this list with my own information about the players. You're correct in your assessment that this is not a random selection of players." The list of in-game names appeared on one of the monitors.

Kirito and Asuna quickly searched through the list in an attempt to find some other connection, but there was none. He recognized a few of the names, but thankfully none of them were players he had been close to. "I can't see a pattern," he said with a sigh.

"Same," Asuna admitted.

"That is because there is none. These players were selected not for their in-game qualities, but for their real-life physical attributes. My calculations show that this is nearly the most diverse assortment of attributes that are possible with the limit of the six-thousand-one-hundred-forty-seven survivors. The only way to increase the diversity would be to include several of your friends, Kirito. Given that's not the case, it is reasonable to assume that whoever is responsible for this—most likely Kayaba's partner—wants this to remain as quiet as possible."

"But...why? What's the point?" Suguha demanded.

"The most probable scenario is that these players are being used for an experiment. The nature of that experiment is something I could only hypothesize with less than twenty-five percent confidence."

"Guess anyway," Shouzou instructed.

Cardinal seemed to hesitate for a minute. "Kayaba occasionally mentioned that his partner was an enormous control freak that wanted to rule the world someday. I would guess that whatever he is doing, it's with that end goal in mind."

"That's the best you can come up with?" Kikuoka asked with a sigh. "Not even a little bit more specific?"

Again, Cardinal took some time to 'think' about the problem. "Perhaps the answer lies in what he stole from the ARGUS research lab. I had an almost fully developed method to transfer a human's consciousness from their body to the virtual world—transforming them into an AI like myself. I was also very close to consistently transferring AI's into the host bodies I had created. This is how Kirito and Asuna are alive today, not because Kayaba or I allowed them to log out from SAO."

Kirito and Asuna both glanced back at their four companions as Cardinal shared that piece of information. He had mostly explained it during the car ride to RECT, but he never stated explicitly that he and Asuna were actually in different, genetically engineered bodies. To his relief, the others didn't seem too bothered by the news, or maybe it hadn't clicked in their minds yet.

"I've spent countless processing cycles on the issue over the last week, but I can't understand why he would steal a hundred host bodies but leave most of my research on how to transfer a consciousness from one reality to another. Without it, the bodies are certainly still usable for things like the dragon you fought earlier today, but he could never create another human being."

"If you can't figure out why he took them, could you at least determine how to get them back?" Asuna asked.

"I would need access to the internet for that, but I doubt that I'd be able to find them. Kayaba specifically designed the Nerve Gear's transmissions to be absolutely untraceable. I find it hard to believe that his partner would double-cross him this way if he wasn't sure that he could hide the players from Kayaba, who is now an AI similar to myself."

"Put yourself in his position then. If you had to kidnap three hundred SAO players, how would you do it?" Kouichirou asked, leaning against the desk as he looked up at the camera.

"I can see two different options, depending on whether or not Kayaba's partner is prioritizing anonymity or security. For anonymity, using another VRMMO to store the players would be the most obvious choice. They could easily just be labeled as players in the game and nobody would know the better unless they took a closer look at their individual data. Keeping them in line might require an abuse of power from the GM, but even that could be difficult to notice from outside the server. If that's not what he's doing, it's possible that he's using his own personal server in some remote location to store their data. It provides the most secure access to the players, but it may be difficult to conceal that much data to a single server location somewhere in Japan."

"I can run a full diagnostic on all of our ALO servers," Kouichirou offered. "It wouldn't hurt to make sure they aren't being hidden right under our noses."

"Thank you," Kikuoka said. "I'll have my office draft a formal request to all the current VRMMO companies that asks them to do the same. Hopefully we can catch him through that method."

Asuna shook her head. "It's not a bad idea, but I doubt it'll work. Even if they're in another game, you gotta' remember that this the guy that helped Kayaba run SAO for the last two years. I can't imagine he's going to get caught by a simple diagnostic."

"To be fair," her father interjected. "SAO was their own controlled environment where they could do whatever they wanted, but that doesn't mean they can just hack into any VRMMO they want without setting off some alarm bells. It's definitely worth a shot."

Voicing his agreement with Asuna's opinion wouldn't have helped anything, so Kirito chose to remain quiet. She was right, though. It wasn't going to be as easy as just running a basic diagnostic. They were now in a battle of wits with someone that was probably quite a bit more intelligent than them.

"What do you plan to do about the other possibility—that he is using his own server?" Cardinal asked them.

Kikuoka hesitated, glancing at Kirito. "If you had access to the open net, could you track the signals from the Nerve Gear?"

"No," was Cardinal's simple reply, but then she amended herself. "Correction: not quickly. Kayaba specifically designed the Nerve Gear's signal output to be untraceable. The only way to stop the death game was to kill Kayaba, but it could have also ended just as easily if someone had shut down the main SAO servers hidden in the ARGUS laboratories for a period of longer than four hours. To prevent that, we had to keep the data from being traced to the actual servers."

"How long would it take you?"

"Several months, perhaps. Kayaba was the one that designed the entire Nerve Gear system, and like I said earlier, it's nearly impenetrable. It's not inconceivable that his partner assisted him in the process. It might actually be faster to monitor the bandwidth consumed by all high-usage entities in Japan. One of them has to be where the players data is being stored, so it might be possible to locate through the process of elimination."

Kikuoka's stress was evident as he buried his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes. "Uhg, alright, I'll discuss that with my superiors tomorrow, I guess. Is there anything else I should know about this situation?"

"Not presently."

Kirito couldn't tell if it was a sigh or relief or exhaustion, but Kikuoka leaned back against the wall and nodded. Taking the opportunity, he said, "Cardinal, can you bring Yui to the real world like you did with us? I saved her data on my Nerve Gear before you deleted her in game." Asuna's eyes shot up as she looked at him in surprise at the question.

"In theory, yes. In reality, probably not, considering that all of the remaining neutral bodies were destroyed by the dragon. Perhaps if you recovered one or two from Kayaba's partner it could be possible. Still, the idea of transferring an AI into a real body is still only theoretical. It has worked for people that I original turned into AIs, but I never got the chance to try it with a pure AI."

From the expression of determination that manifested on Asuna's face, Kirito could only assume that she would stop at nothing to get her hands on one of those bodies. He placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently, letting her know that he was with her. No matter the odds, they would get Yui back.

Kirito glanced at the others in the room, noting how tired his sister was looking. "Anyone else have anything they need to ask Cardinal for now?" he asked.

Everyone shook their heads. Kirito doubted that all of their questions were actually answered, but they had been talking to the AI for quite awhile and he was sure that people were really starting to get hungry.

"Until next time, then, Cardinal," he said, turning back to the computer to shut her down.

"When next we speak, we must discuss my future."

"As the government representative here, I can say that your future is entirely dependent on catching Kayaba's partner and rescuing the three hundred trapped players. We'll work something out soon so that you can assist with that, since you seem to want to prove that your intentions are good."

"That is acceptable," Cardinal relented. "Wait ten seconds and then disconnect my drive, Kirito."

Ten seconds later he removed the drive and let out a sigh. As he put the drive back in the plastic container, Shouzou said, "I'll have one of my engineers create a system that Cardinal can exist on. We can't keep using the Alfheim servers, as they'll get filled up with data eventually."

"Yeah, and I'll have Nobuyuki run that diagnostic for us tomorrow," Kouichirou added.

"Thanks a lot, you two," Kikuoka said. "I know you don't have to do all of this, so I really appreciate it."

Shouzou waived his hand. "Nonsense. How about we go and get some dinner to unwind? Sound good?"

"I just want one rule," Suguha spoke up, yawning. "Please, no serious talk. I just wanna' spend some time with my big brother..."

Asuna smiled at her. "I second the motion. Let's take the rest of this evening off. We deserve it after how this day has gone!" Kirito found himself nodding along with a grin on his face as well. It really, truly, had been a long day. The Skull Reaper, Heathcliff, dying, waking up, killing a dragon, and now...dealing with an AI. That could amount to more excitement and action than the average person would see in their entire lifetime.

 _Yep, an evening off is definitely in order.  
_

* * *

The next chapter is going to be more light-hearted, maybe even the next two. I want to bring the other characters (Klein, Agil, Lis, Silica) back into the story before it goes too much further (granted, it hasn't even covered a single full day yet in three chapters).

Also thinking of writing 'Warmth of Heart' for _Worlds Apart_ , if anyone is interested in that.


	5. Friends

Sorry, it's been awhile. Been super busy with real life. Also, I wrote this chapter four or five different times. Some iterations had: Kirito/Asuna/Suguha engaging with the school kids, Kirito going to meet Silica in the afternoon, and some other stuff I don't even remember anymore. I settled on this because I didn't want to add too much filler in.

Friends

Kirito groaned as he woke up, blinking quickly to adjust to the sunlight coming through the window. A faint buzzing sound was coming from a little table between his and his sister's chair. It took him a moment to adjust to the sunlight before he realized that it was her phone that was buzzing. He picked it up and cringed.

 _Alarm: 7:10 am_

The bad part was that the _actual_ time was displayed right above—11:38 am. He flicked the 'dismiss' option and quietly got up from his chair, trying not to wake the two girls as he left the living room. They had stayed up pretty late the previous night with Suguha watching movies that they had missed while they were in SAO.

Still...the thought of Suguha having school the next day didn't even occur to Kirito. Hell, he hadn't even thought about school since waking up from SAO the previous day. Feeling a little guilty, he took her phone and paced back and forth in the hall, searching through the contact list for their mother.

It rang four times before she picked up with a hurried, "Hey, Sugu...?"

"Uh...hi mom, it's me," he said lamely.

"Oh, hi Kirito. Erm...sorry, I'm really busy so I can't talk long. What do you need?"

He scratched the back of his head. "What is today?"

"Friday..."

"Sugu has school today then, right?"

"Huh? Yeah, she said she'd go before I left last night."

"Yeah, well...we stayed up pretty late catching up. Her phone was on silent so she isn't even up yet. Sorry."

His mother chuckled. "Don't worry about it. I wasn't going to make her go if she didn't want to anyway."

"Ah...good," he said with a relieved sigh.

"Hey, do me a favor?" she asked him, sounding amused.

"Hmm?"

"Can you take care of excusing her absence today? I'm super busy right now, so I wouldn't be able to do it until next Monday." The school where he had gone to, and where Suguha probably now went, was extremely strict about attendance. To be excused, the student's guardian had to come in person so that students couldn't fake a phone call from their parents.

"Am I even allowed to do that? I thought it had to be a student's parent."

"You're _Kirito_ ," his mother said with a sharp laugh. "Nobody is going to argue with your sister taking a day off because you just woke up from SAO, though they might not believe her unless you show up with her."

He rolled his eyes to himself. "Yeah, yeah. I'll have one of Kikuoka's guys drive us if they're here."

"Have them get you a phone," she advised. "Sugu probably won't want to share hers forever."

"I think Kikuoka mentioned something about doing that before he left last night." He shook his head. "I'll let you go, mom. Talk to you later?"

"I'll try to stop by tonight, kiddo. Take care of your sister."

"I promise. See ya."

With a sigh, he pocketed the phone and glanced around, his eyes coming to rest on a man sitting in the dining room with a laptop. It was the driver that had brought him and Asuna to the house the day before.

Considering himself lucky, he walked through the kitchen into the dining room and greeted the man with an incline of his head. "You're the one on duty, I assume?"

He nodded, removing his ear buds—apparently he was listening to music. "Yes. Mr. Kikuoka asked me to keep an eye on you three and to help you with anything you needed until he gets back."

"Where is Kikuoka, anyway?" he asked, sitting down across from the man.

The man shrugged. "Political stuff, I assume. He said he'd be back later today with some stuff for you and Asuna."

Kirito nodded. "What's your name? If you're going to be driving us around we should probably at least know that."

"Naro Shigama," he replied with a chuckle. "Just call me Naro, though."

"Got it. Well, I need you to drive me and my sister to her school. She missed today and I need to excuse her absence. After that, Asuna and I wanted to go visit our friends from SAO and see how they are doing."

Naro nodded, closing the laptop and standing up. "That shouldn't be a problem. Several of them—Klein, Agil, and Lisbeth at least—were moved to a similar safe house. The others shouldn't be too hard for us to find."

"Hmm, well I'd like to meet with Silica if possible, but I think that's it, other than the three you listed."

"I'll ask Mr. Kikuoka to tell me where she is."

Kirito chuckled as Naro seemed to be ready to leave. "No rush, Naro. The girls aren't even up yet, so it might be awhile."

Naro laughed as well as he returned to his seat. "Take your time. I'm here all day."

"Thank you," Kirito replied sincerely. It was amazing how everyone seemed so willing to help him with anything he wanted. After being on his own for most of SAO, there was no way he could take their kindness for granted.

His only reply to Kirito's gratitude was a nod with a faint smile. Assuming that was the end of the conversation, Kirito returned to the living room.

Asuna and Suguha were both still sleeping soundly in their chairs. With a regrettable sigh—they looked so cute while they slept—he walked over and gently shook each of their shoulders to wake them up.

Asuna yawned like a cat when he woke her, sitting up straight and stretching widely. "Morning, Kirito," she said through a second yawn.

Suguha, on the other hand, didn't wake quite as easily. She groaned a little but didn't get up, so she shook her a little harder until she finally grunted and mumbled, "Uhrrggg. Go away."

He and Asuna both laughed a little. "Come on, Sugu. Get up. It's almost noon."

At the word 'noon', Suguha shot up in her chair, wincing at the rays of sunlight coming in. She hurriedly fumbled with the table her phone was on, but couldn't find it.

"Here," he said, handing her the phone.

"Shit, shit, shit! I'm like four hours late!"

Kirito rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, but it's probably more mine and Asuna's fault than yours. We were the ones who weren't too tired last night."

"Hey, speak for yourself!" Asuna barked at him jokingly.

"Either way, I called mom and she said that it's fine if you miss school, Sugu."

"Ahh..." Suguha sighed in relief. "Phew, okay."

"But...I gotta take you and excuse the absence 'cause mom's busy."

"Right now?"

Kirito shrugged. "Yeah, in a few minutes at least." He glanced over at Asuna. "We wanted to visit our SAO friends this afternoon, so it would work out okay to stop by the school, then go get some food before we head to the other safe house."

Suguha stretched again as she got out of her chair. "Fine, fine. I'll go clean up."

"Me too," Asuna added.

A moment later he was left alone in the living room. He plopped back into his chair and looked up at the ceiling. "Girls."

* * *

"To the other safe house now?" Naro asked as Kirito and the two girls climbed back into the SUV.

"Yup," was Asuna's reply.

They had just finished excusing Suguha from school. Naro had saved them quite the ordeal by suggesting that they eat lunch before heading into school so that the students would be back in the classrooms when they arrived.

It went pretty much as planned. A few people were still scattered across the campus, but for the most part they were left alone. Oddly, the principal of the school gave them the most trouble. He walked by as they were talking with the attendance secretary and he stopped to talk to Kirito. It turned out that the government had informed the principal, Mr. Sayoto, about his relationship to Suguha so that he could keep an eye on her to make sure nothing happened to her as a result of him in the event that his identity was made public.

Sayoto tried to get Kirito to come and speak at one of the school's weekly student rallies, but Kirito had to decline him. Frankly, he wasn't comfortable with speeches or being the center of attention. He'd essentially lived most of his life in the shadows, associating with as few people as possible. Add that to the fact that he wanted to avoid having his real identity becoming public for as long as possible and his answer was quite obvious.

He blinked and looked to his side as he felt a small hand clasp his own gently. "Hmm? Sugu?" She was sitting in the middle row of seats with him while Asuna was riding shotgun.

"N-nothing...I'm just really happy you're back, you know?" He thought he saw a tear roll down her cheek as she turned her head away to look out the window. Her hand had grown clammy in his grip.

He was well aware that Asuna had partly turned around in her seat and was watching the two of them with a tender smile. With a squeeze of her hand, he said, "Yeah, me too.. I was afraid that you might not forgive me for the way I treated you before SAO."

"You mean when you found out I wasn't your real sister?"

He froze at the statement. It shouldn't have surprised him that she knew. She had, after all, watched him in SAO. It was about a year into the game when he first met Silica and discussed the topic, so it would have been broadcast on the stream. "How did you learn about that? Was it from the stream when I was with Silica?"

Suguha nodded as she turned back so he could see her face. In the few seconds she stared out the window she had managed to master her emotions, or maybe he hadn't seen the tear in the first place. Her slightly puffy eyes made him question that thought, though. "Yeah, that was the first time I heard about it. Mom explained how you found out when you were ten, though."

"I'm sorry..." he muttered, glancing down to avoid meeting her eyes. "It was never your fault. The way I left things with you haunted me the entire time I was in SAO. I was really nervous that you might not accept me when I got back and tried to make things right."

This time it was her turn to squeeze his hand comfortingly, giving him enough confidence to look up into her eyes. "Of course I forgive you, big brother..."

"Thanks...sis?" they both looked at each other as he said that and then burst out laughing. The nervous, questioning tone he said it in, combined with their shared happiness, was more than enough to diffuse the seriousness of the situation.

When she managed to reduce her laugh to a chuckle, Suguha said, "Seriously, though, if you feel so guilty about it all you gotta' do to make it up to me is to just keep being the way you are now."

Kirito smiled and ruffled her hair, causing her to grumble. "I think I can manage that."

"Aww, you two are so cute!" Asuna exclaimed, grinning at them both.

Suguha's cheeks turned a slightly brighter shade of pink as she released his hand quickly, glancing out the window again. Kirito could only shake his head in amusement. Fortunately, the slightly awkward feeling in the car was dispelled as Naro said, "We're here."

Unsurprisingly, the second safe-house was more or less the same as the one he and Asuna were staying at. It appeared to be just an average house in a suburb with a black SUV in the driveway. They pulled into the garage before getting out and entering the house.

The house layout was a little different, but it had the same three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a dining room, and a laundry room, along with a couple bathrooms. All there of the bedrooms had medical equipment in them, though no people. The sounds of swords clanging and people shouting caught his attention as they neared the living room, passing two suited men sitting at the kitchen table that glanced up in surprise at their presence, though Naro went to reassure them as Kirito and the others headed for the living room.

He shared a glance with Asuna as he heard himself shout, "I need ten seconds, keep him off me!"

Kirito groaned to himself as they walked around the corner and saw Agil, Klein, and Lisbeth scattered across various couches and chairs in the living room with their eyes glued to a big TV. They were watching the floor seventy four boss fight. They were all dressed with blue jeans and t-shirts that looked like they had been bought the previous night haphazardly.

"Okay, I'm ready! Switch!"

"Ehhh," Suguha groaned quietly. "This fight was so scary to watch..."

"Shh," Kirito whispered, realizing that they hadn't been noticed yet. "I wanna see their reactions."

"Starburst Stream!"

The three watched in stunned silence as he soloed Gleam Eyes. Suguha, on the other hand, tugged on Kirito's arm a little, causing him to wrap his arm around her back comfortingly. She sighed, "It's still so hard to watch..."

Asuna walked around him and placed a hand on her shoulder as well. "Yeah...I'm with you there, Suguha."

When Gleam Eyes was dead Agil whispered, "Shit...they didn't say it was that close. Still, that was so awesome!"

"Hey, shh, this is the best part!" Klein said with a knowing grin.

Kirito rolled his eyes and stepped forward. "Enough of that, Klein."

"Huh?" Klein muttered, not realizing where the voice came from at first. "I don't remember Kirito saying that."

"G-Guys..." Lisbeth stuttered out, pointing towards Kirito, Asuna, and Suguha.

"K-Ki-Kirito?" both Agil and Klein demanded in shock as they looked in the direction Lisbeth was pointing.

"I'm here too, you know!" Asuna said as she crossed her arms with a fake scowl.

Noting how thin they were and understanding how difficult it probably was to stand on their own volition, Kirito extended a hand to Agil, who was sitting closest to him. Agil grinned and took the outstretched hand, allowing Kirito to pull him to his feet and hug him. "You crazy bastard! Man, it's great to see you on the other side." He gave Asuna a quick hug as well before returning to the couch.

He and Asuna greeted Lisbeth next, as she was closer than Klein. Asuna helped the pink-haired girl to her feet and embraced her. "I'm so happy you're here..." Lisbeth whispered. "Both of you," she added as she turned to Kirito and hugged him as well. The hug was short, as Lisbeth pulled back with slightly flushed cheeks, but he let it pass. He appreciated how Lisbeth respected his and Asuna's relationship, despite the fact that she herself had felt something strong for him at one point.

As Lisbeth and Asuna exchanged a few more words, Kirito went over to Klein and hugged him as well. "I owe you a dinner, don't I?"

"Hah...you bet you do. Damn, it's good to see you, kiddo." He plopped back in his chair with a sigh and glanced at Agil. "We thought the two of you were dead until we saw you on TV fighting a dragon in the real world. You better explain what the hell's going on!"

Kirito chuckled. "Yeah, in a bit." He beckoned for Suguha to come closer. "Agil, Lisbeth, Klein, this is my sister, Suguha."

Suguha bowed to the three of them. "It's nice to meet you all."

"Hey, it's an honor to meet Kirito's sister," Agil said with a warm smile. "My name is Andrew Gilbert Mills, but I go by Agil in game." He shook her hand gently.

"I'm Rika Shinozaki, or Lisbeth in game. It's awesome to meet you, Suguha."

"I'm Ryoutarou Tsuboi, the badass samurai Klein, twenty-four and single!"

"And you look like a fossil," Kirito commented harshly, crossing his arms in irritation.

Asuna, Lisbeth, and Agil snickered to themselves at the banter as Klein pretended to be offended. "Hey, bro, that hurts! Not my fault that I was stuck in a game for two years."

Kirito rolled his eyes and turned to Lisbeth. "How many times as he made a pass at you in the last day?"

"Come on!" Klein complained as Lisbeth held up three fingers. "It was only twice! You can't count me asking you if you were single as making a pass."

"Oh calm down, Klein," Agil said mildly. "Let's let Kirito and Asuna tell us their story. I'd rather hear about fighting a dragon than your pathetic love attempts."

"Fair point," the crimson-haired man acknowledged. "So, Kirito, buddy, what's the deal with all this crap? If you've both got your SAO stuff why don't I have my katana?"

Asuna sat down beside Lisbeth while Suguha took one of the remaining open chairs, but Kirito decided to remain standing. "Well," he began. "I'm not entirely sure how much we can actually say about it. The less that people know the better."

"Don't give me that crap!" Klein complained. "We aren't gonna tell everyone."

Kirito shook his head. "You better not." He glanced over and Lisbeth. "Hey, Liz, it seems you guys are well aware of the whole stream thing, given what you were watching. Did you get to watch the final fight on floor seventy-five yet?"

"Yup," she said with a nod. "When the game got cleared I just knew that it was you who did it, so when I woke up and learned there was a recording of it I forced the government guys to show me." She hesitated. "It kinda broke my heart though...seeing you both die like that. I was so happy when I woke up, 'cause I just knew that you were the one to clear the game. Only you could do something as crazy as beating the game twenty-five floors early, right? But then...I heard that you died in the process. Watching it for myself just made the sadness worse."

Kirito nodded. "Yeah, sorry about that. In my defense, and Asuna's too, we never thought anyone would watch what we did. Anyway, Asuna and I spoke with Heathcliff after we beat the game..." he related most of the basic information about SAO's true purpose, the three hundred players who didn't wake up, Kayaba's partner, and how they were alive.

"Jeez, that's a lot to wrap our heads around," Agil grumbled. "It's gotta be pretty weird to have your SAO strength in the real world, right?"

Kirito shrugged. "I don't know, man. People kind of look at me and Asuna a bit weird, and we're definitely different in this world, but after being this way for two years it's still pretty natural, I'd say." His eyes widened as he realized something. He drew Dark Repulser gently and handed the blade hilt-first to Asuna. "I thought you might want to inspect your creation, Liz."

Asuna held the blade out for Lisbeth to examine, as it would be too difficult for her to actually lift the sword in her current state. She slowly ran her fingers over the smooth surface of the sword, being careful to avoid the razor-sharp edges. "I can't believe it's actually real..." she whispered. "What exactly is it made of, and how?"

Dark Repulser was returned to its normal position on his back as Asuna handed the sword back to him. With a shrug, he said, "Honestly, I don't really know. I'll have to ask Cardinal sometime."

"Ask her if she wants to make me into my avatar too," Klein suggested with a grin. "That'd be awesome."

With an amused shake of his head, he said, "There's no way. Besides, even if it were possible it's only like a twenty-five percent chance of it actually succeeding. You'd have to be an idiot to risk it."

"Meh..." was Klein's disappointed response.

Suguha's phone started ringing all of a sudden, causing her to reach into her pocket and frown. "Eh...it's Kikuoka. One sec..." she answered the call, spoke a basic greeting, and then handed the phone to Kirito. "It's for you."

"Hello?" Kirito asked, taking the phone from Suguha and bringing it to his ear.

"Uh, hey Kirito, buddy," Kikuoka's voice came through, sounding a bit nervous.

The way Kikuoka was speaking gave Kirito a nervous feeling, so he lowered the phone for a moment and said to his friends, "I'm gonna take this out in the hall. Be back in a sec."

Before Asuna or the others could protest, he walked out of the room. "What's wrong?" he demanded.

"I know I told you that it would be awhile before we needed to get into the details, but uh...I got called into a meeting with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense. They're demanding to see you. So...could you please come?"

Kirito groaned. "You've got to be kidding." He hesitated, glancing behind him to make sure nobody had followed him into the hall. "What happens if I don't come?"

Kikuoka chuckled nervously. "Uh, I probably get fired. But they'll track you down either way, I'm sure."

"Shit... Fine, what do they even want with me?"

"I told them the general idea of what's going on, but they don't like the idea of trusting you with something as important as Cardinal's drive and the mission to catch Kayaba's partner. I suppose if you wanted out you could just hand over the hard drive and walk away, but otherwise you're gonna have to come convince them to trust you."

 _Like hell I'm leaving this up to the government,_ he thought to himself. Who could know what they'd do with Cardinal, or with whatever Kayaba's partner is working on? The technology surrounding SAO was beyond anything that a single government should have authority over. It had to either be destroyed, hidden, or made available to everyone. The idea of a single government having access to genetic super-soldiers or other supernatural beings was truly terrifying.

"How am I supposed to get there?" he asked, making sure his irritated sigh was clearly heard.

"Thank you," came Kikuoka's relieved voice. "There's a hospital a couple blocks from where you are." The sound of fingers snapping was heard on the other end of the line, indicating that Kikuoka was telling someone to do something. "I'll have a helicopter waiting on the roof that will bring you here."

"What about Asuna? Does she have to come too?"

"Hmm, they didn't ask for her specifically. They seem far more interested in you. I guess that's all up to you and her."

"Fine, fine. I'll try to leave her behind, but she'll probably want to come. Text me directions to the hospital and I'll meet your helicopter there."

"See you in a few minutes then," Kikuoka replied before hanging up the phone.

Kirito waited about a minute in the hall until the phone buzzed and a text from Kikuoka appeared. The directions were extremely simple, as the hospital was only a few blocks away. With a resigned sigh, he returned to the living room.

"Well, what's up?" Klein asked as he walked back in.

"The government wants to talk to me about what happened with the dragon yesterday. Mr. Kikuoka's sending a helicopter to a nearby hospital to transport me." He shook his head. "I gotta get going, so I'll talk to you guys later, alright?"

"Shouldn't I come with you?" Asuna asked quickly as she stood up and walked over to him.

"Don't trouble yourself over it," he suggested in a carefree tone. "I'm sure it's not a big deal, and they only asked for me, so you and Sugu can hang out here for awhile if you'd like."

"Yeah, come on, stay!" Lisbeth called out. "I had one of the government guys gather a bunch of the footage from when Kirito was soloing. We were gonna watch it this afternoon."

Asuna chuckled. "Oh, fine." She gave Kirito a serious look, though. "Be careful, and call if you need anything." She took the phone of out Kirito's hand and tossed it back to Suguha. "We'll be here."

"Gotcha, thanks. It shouldn't be a problem though. Hopefully it doesn't take all afternoon, but it's the government, so you never know." He chuckled, trying to maintain the relaxed persona. Asuna would definitely come with him if she knew who he was meeting and why.

With a hug and kiss from Asuna, along with quick goodbyes to the others in the room, Kirito left the house. As he stepped outside it occurred to him that this would be the first time he and Asuna had been separated in quite some time.

He shook off the feeling and began to casually jog to the hospital, paying no mind to the dozens of people that stopped and stared as he ran by with his two swords slung across his back.

As indicated by the directions Kikuoka had given him, the hospital was only several blocks away. He covered the distance in a few short minutes, arriving at the eight story hospital just as a military helicopter descended towards the helipad on the roof.

 _Perfect timing,_ he thought, slowing to a quick walk as he entered the lobby, again drawing the attention of everyone present. There was a line of people queued up for the front desk, but he walked past it and asked the receptionist, "Hey, what's the fastest way to the roof?"

Kirito couldn't help but feel a bit annoyed at how nearly _everyone_ he talked to ended up having to collect their wits before being able to reply to him. After the customary pause of disbelief for several seconds, the woman motioned down a hall to Kirito's right. "Uh, head down that way to the ER. The closest elevator will go directly to the roof."

"Thanks."

The elevator the woman mentioned ended up being about fifty meters away. In the time it took him to walk that far, he was approached by the families of _fourteen_ different SAO survivors. Each time he did his best to quickly explain that he was expected to be somewhere and couldn't chat. By the tenth time, he'd found the quickest way to deal with the overwhelming gratitude the families were displaying.

"Hi, I'm glad you have your family back together. I don't mean to be rude, but I am supposed to be somewhere right now and I have to hurry so I can't stay to talk. Enjoy your day."

After repeating the line another half-dozen times, he finally arrived at the elevator and pressed the 'up' arrow. Moments later the doors opened and a team of six nurses dashed out of the elevator, pushing a stretcher with a bleeding man on it. Kirito stood there in surprise for a second, watching them disappear around the corner towards the emergency room.

With a shake of his head, realizing that he could be having a _much_ worse day, he stepped into the elevator and hit the 'roof' button. The elevator ride was shorter than he'd expected, given that he was going up what amounted to nine floors. He briefly reasoned that it was because the elevator was meant for emergency personnel to use when they brought in a patient by medivac, meaning that time was of the essence as the elevator was designed to function faster than normal.

A chilling breeze swept past him as he stepped out of the elevator onto the roof. From the ground he wouldn't have been able to tell, but there was actually space on the roof for _three_ helicopters. The military one was parked in the space furthest from the door. Between him and the helicopter that was obviously meant for him was a medivac chopper whose blades were still slowing down. It occurred to him that the medivac must have arrived between the time he entered the building and when he got to the roof.

An armed and uniformed man stepped out of the co-pilot's seat in the military helicopter, waving Kirito over. "We've got orders to fly you to the Ministry of Defense, sir!" the man said, bowing as Kirito approached the helicopter.

Kirito nodded. "Let's get this over with, then." He stepped into the helicopter, ignoring the machine gun mounted by the door.

"Hold on," the pilot advised. "I'd be out of a job if you fell out!"

His copilot laughed as they started up the helicopter. "You should be out of a job anyway with the way you drive. Their banter continued for the remainder of the time it took the helicopter to start up and climb into the sky.

Now, Kirito had never flown before, so seeing the city from the sky for the first time was quite the experience. It was short-lived, though, as it only took a couple of minutes for the large Ministry of Defense building to come into view alongside its satellite tower.

They landed on one of the two helipads on the building's rooftop, guided down by a soldier waving two brightly colored batons in a pattern that apparently informed the pilot what he needed to correct in his course.

When he stepped out of the helicopter he was greeted by a group of four soldiers who bowed immediately. "Sir! We are to escort you to the Ministers. Please follow us."

Steeling himself for the encounter to come, Kirito fell in behind the soldiers and made his way into the building.


	6. Government

Hi.

So, I've been really, really busy (read: spent 3 weeks straight working 14+ hours a day on projects for classes). I'm not abandoning the story or anything, so calm down with the spam reviews asking for updates, lol. Fanfiction is a pretty low priority for me overall unless I'm feeling particularly inspired, so sometimes chapters might take awhile. I hope they don't take _this_ long again, as the reason this took so much is because I regret making Kirito visit the Prime Minister which caused some pretty serious writer's block. It's been a bitch of a chapter to write, and I don't feel like it's particularly great. I got it to the point where it's good enough to move the plot along a bit, but it's definitely my least favorite chapter so far. There's a bit of an alternate ending at the bottom, included just because I felt like the chapter was too short and some extra material that I thought about using would be welcome. The alternate ending is not part of the story.

Oh, I also didn't give you guys an "Author's note" because I find them to be annoying. Anytime I see a story was updated and then realize that it was just the author making excuses or whatever for not posting the next chapter it bugs me more than having to wait in the first place. Maybe you guys don't feel that way. If that's the case, tell me. But I personally don't like posting a new chapter that gets people's hopes up only to provide an update.

* * *

Government

"They're waiting for you, sir," said one of the two suited men guarding a set of ornate double doors. "Go on in."

With a nod of agreement from Kirito, the men each turned the knob of the door closest to them and opened them inwards to reveal what appeared to be the main conference chamber of the Ministry of Defense.

An enormous oval-shaped table rested in the center of the rectangular room. There must have been close to fifty chairs, maybe even more, spaced comfortably around the table. Only four were occupied at the moment—the furthest ones from the entrance.

The four men in the chairs stood up as Kirito entered the room and walked towards them. Three of them were unknown to Kirito, with Kikuoka being the fourth. He assumed that the man sitting at the far end of the table was the Prime Minister, and one of the other two would have to be the Minister of Defense, based on what Kikuoka had told him over the phone. That left the identity of the fourth man a mystery.

It wasn't a mystery for long, as Kikuoka waved Kirito over and took the liberty of introducing him to the three men. "Thanks for coming, Kirito. Let me introduce you to the Prime Minister, Shinzou Abe, the Minister of Defense, Gen Nakatani, and the Commissioner General of the National Police Agency, Ren Ikeda. Gentlemen, this is Kirito."

Abe stepped forward to shake Kirito's hand firmly, smiling at him. "It's fantastic to meet you, Kirito."

"Likewise," Kirito responded with pleasant surprise as he returned the friendly greeting. Based on Kikuoka's tone over the phone he had assumed that his encounter with the Ministers would be much less friendly than it was shaping up to be.

He exchanged greetings with the other two men before taking a seat beside Kikuoka, opposite Nakatani and Ikeda.

"So," he began. "Why am I here?"

"I would have wanted to meet you regardless, but the recent events have forced us to meet now under much less pleasant circumstances than I'd have preferred," Abe said, growing much more serious.

Nakatani nodded his agreement. "As I'm sure you understand, Kirito, the fallout from the SAO incident has certain matters pertaining to...well...national security. Mr. Kikuoka has given us a brief summary of what has happened since you beat SAO, but we would like to hear it from you."

"And then?"

"We decide what to do about it," Abe said simply, which didn't even come close to answering Kirito's question.

Kirito crossed his arms. "If you want me to be upfront with you about this whole thing, you need to give me more than that. I'm not an idiot. I understand the implications of me and Asuna being alive and the technology that Kayaba was working on. If Kikuoka already gave you a summary, then you have a general idea of what you want. What do you expect from me?"

The Prime Minister folded his hands as he glanced down, seemingly surprised by Kirito's boldness. Then, he looked up and said, "Our current inclination is for you to hand over the drive with Cardinal's data and let us deal with this partner of Kayaba's. This is a matter for our nation's law enforcement to settle, not a superhuman swordsman."

Kirito leaned back in his chair, feeling the pressure of his two swords in an 'X' across his back. "I intend to hunt down Kayaba's partner. I'll do that whether or not you want me to."

"Why? Don't you want to put down your swords after two years of fighting? Let us handle this. Go enjoy your life."

The offer was tempting. It had definitely occurred to Kirito that he and Asuna could simply try to walk away from the fight. They were free from SAO. They pretty much had superpowers. Nobody could stop them from doing what they wanted. But...

"I'm not the kind of person that turns his back when someone needs my help. I made a promise that I would end SAO. The game might be offline now, but it's not over yet. It won't be over until the three hundred people still trapped in the virtual world are returned to their families and Kayaba's partner is either rotting in a cell or in the ground."

"I admire your integrity," Nakatani said, dipping his head. "But please consider allowing the police to do their jobs."

"Because that worked so well for the ten thousand that Kayaba trapped in SAO," Kirito retorted sharply. "Two years and you couldn't find a way to disable the Nerve Gear. Why should I have any faith that you'll somehow be more capable of tracking down Kayaba's partner and stopping him?"

Ikeda glanced down with a sigh. "Your anger is understandable. It was my agency's job to protect you all, but we failed. Kayaba was a villain unlike any we've encountered before. We simply did not have the expertise to match his, and every consultant assured us that there was no way to penetrate Kayaba's setup."

"Then why should I trust you now?" Kirito asked, softening his tone. He hadn't intended to be so harsh earlier, not realizing how upset he was about the government's lack of success in thwarting Kayaba. "By your own logic, Kayaba's partner is also a villain unlike anything you've dealt with in the past."

"We'd have Kayaba's pet AI on our side this time. And really, while you might be right that we may also fail in this endeavor, there's nothing besides Cardinal that would make me think you'd be any more successful in your own investigation."

"I'm not handling Cardinal over to you."

Abe rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Perhaps you could explain why you're so set on defending the very AI that killed nearly four thousand people..."

"I know what it's like to be a pawn in Kayaba's game. Cardinal has claimed that Kayaba forced her to do what she did, and I'm willing to give her the chance to prove it." He shook his head. "That's not the real reason, though. In truth, she's the best chance Asuna and I have of ever getting to see our daughter, Yui, again."

As the other three considered Kirito's motives, Kikuoka finally spoke up. "Why don't we work together? It's clear that Kirito's not going to stand down on this, so the best solution would be to work with him, rather than against him, right?"

Nakatani sighed. "The only way that would work is if we had full access to Cardinal. We're not running an investigation with you, Mr. Kikuoka, or Kirito as a middleman for our intel."

Kirito glanced at Kikuoka, who shrugged uncertainly. Not seeing much of a way around it, Kirito nodded at Nakatani and replied with, "Fine. We'll keep Cardinal at RECT Progress's headquarters. There's already a team there working to create an environment for Cardinal to continuously run. They also need to modify her coding to get rid of the constraints Kayaba enslaved her with. Beyond that, they'll add a few basic constraints that will prevent her from going rogue and causing a huge problem."

"You're concerned about the damage she could cause if she chose to turn on us?" Abe clarified.

Kirito shrugged. "The threat is there, yeah, but I highly doubt she would turn against us, at least at first. She's got to be afraid of Kayaba coming after her if he finds out that she wasn't destroyed with the rest of the SAO servers. Working with us is the only way that doesn't happen."

Abe, Nakatani, and Ikeda exchanged glances, and then nods of approval. "Fine, fine," Abe agreed. "We'll go with that for now. After the end of the investigation we _will_ have a say in whether or not Cardinal is held responsible for the SAO victims, though."

"Also, I want a team of my experts to examine the coding constraints that RECT puts on Cardinal to make sure they're strong enough. Like you said, if it's done incorrectly and Cardinal _does_ decide to turn on us, it could be a disaster." Nakatani's insistence was spoken in a tone that made it clear the condition wasn't up for discussion.

Kirito nodded his acceptance. "Agreed." He glanced to his side at Kikuoka, and then added, "Was there anything else...? I walked out on a reunion with my friends to be here, you know."

Abe leaned back in his chair and reverted to his more casual and friendly tone from the start of the meeting. "I'd hoped to speak with you a bit about the implications of us creating the stream of your gameplay." He shifted his gaze to the Minister of Defense and Commissioner General. "Mr. Ikeda, Mr. Nakatani, we can discuss further details at a later time after Cardinal is brought online. You may go." The two men stood up, bowed to Abe, and spoke their respectful farewells to Kirito and Kikuoka.

With Nakatani and Ikeda gone, Kirito tapped his fingers on the table as he waited for Abe to continue. "Mr. Kikuoka tells me that you and Asuna have been extremely understanding about the whole situation." Kirito gave a nod of confirmation, causing Abe to add, "That is a great relief. It was a matter of some debate what the potential consequences might be for what we did. We at the Japanese government all acknowledge the violation of your privacy that we caused, and we apologize for that wholeheartedly. As a form of reparations, we decided to do whatever we could to accommodate your needs after Sword Art Online."

Kirito cracked his knuckles as he thought about what he could possibly want. Did he or Asuna really expect any sort of reparations from the government? Wasn't their reason for fighting to simply escape the game, return to their lives, and live together in the real world? He shook his head. "In a way, I have to say that I'm grateful for the stream." Abe raised his eyebrows, causing Kirito to chuckle. "Not because of the fame or whatever, but because it helped me repair my relationship with my sister. I always worried that if I woke up from the game she'd still be angry at me for the way I treated her after I found out that she's really my cousin, not sister. Because she was able to watch me for most of the game, she understood how much I regretted the way I acted, and she had already forgiven me by the time I woke up."

"I'm glad to hear that," Abe said with a smile. A brief alarm rang from his phone causing him to fetch it from his pocket. "Ah," he said, tilting his head a bit as he glanced at Kirito. "It's ten 'till four, which means I need to head to a press conference to give an official statement about the end of SAO. How about you join me, Kirito? It'll be fun." Abe winked at him.

With a groan Kirito glanced away. "No way in hell. Even if I wanted to, Asuna would kill me for doing that kind of thing without talking to her first."

Abe stood up with a chuckle as he adjusted his tie. "Alright, I'm not going to force you to come." Kirito breathed a sigh of relief. "But you won't be able to ignore the media forever," he added seriously. "Take it from me, the more you ignore them, the harder they'll come after you."

Kirito stood up to shake the Prime Minister's hand. "Thanks for the advice. It was surprisingly pleasant to meet you, sir."

"You should have more confidence in yourself," he advised, shaking his head. "You carry more power in the world than you seem to realize. Even if I wasn't a nice guy, I'd still try to win you over to my side. Only an idiot would intentionally make an enemy out of you."

The corners of Kirito's mouth rose a bit as he smirked at the compliment. "I'll definitely keep that in mind."

"Until we next meet, then," Abe said as he glanced at his watch again and hurried from the room.

Kirito sighed as the door closed and he was left alone in the enormous conference room. He leaned on one of the chairs slightly, not quite sure what to do with himself. "What the hell do I do now?" he thought out loud.

With a shrug, he walked out the door and was mildly surprised that the two guards from before were still there, apparently waiting for him. He'd have thought they'd escort the Prime Minister. When he voiced his question, they shook their heads. "We were instructed by Mr. Nakatani to escort you back to the helicopter on the roof."

 _He really doesn't want me around,_ Kirito realized as he tried to avoid chuckling at the situation. To the guards, he said, "Alright then, let's go."

* * *

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Kirito said, holding his hands up defensively as Asuna playfully slapped at him.

She glared at him for a second before letting out an indignant sigh as she turned her head away. "You really should trust me more, you know..."

Kirito pushed himself off the couch he had been chased onto so he could rest a hand on her shoulder. "It's nothing to do with trust, silly. I just didn't want you to have to worry about it if it turned out to be nothing. You deserve a break."

"So do you," she insisted, though more softly than before. "We're supposed to be there for each other, right? Why do you feel like you need to bear the burden of our problems alone?"

"Asuna," he said sternly, gently turning her towards him and lifting her chin so he could look into her eyes. "I'll always try to protect you. Always. I'll protect you just like you'd try to protect me."

Her cheeks flushed slightly as she glanced down to escape his gaze. "I know," she mumbled as she shook her head. "I guess it's just weird for me. In the game it was always me that had to deal with all the political crap and I tried to shield you from it as much as I could..." She leaned into him and rested her head against his chest. "Your heartbeat...I don't remember hearing it in SAO."

Kirito wrapped his arms around her back, happy with the change of topic. "Yeah, it definitely feels a lot better to hold you in this world than the virtual one." He chuckled as she shifted in his arms a little, knowing she probably felt a bit embarrassed by the comment.

He gently coaxed her onto the couch with him as he sat down. "You want to do anything?" he mumbled. It was the first time they'd been alone since SAO ended. They'd stayed at Lisbeth, Agil, and Klein's safe-house until after dinner, hanging out with their friends and watching TV. Midori had picked up Suguha when they returned to their own safe-house, and Kirito had subsequently dismissed the guards so that they could be alone.

She surprised him by removing her head from his chest to lean up and kiss him gently. The kiss deepened after a moment, lasting much longer than he thought she had originally intended. They broke apart with a gasp and her saying, "That."

"Wow," he replied, taking a deep breath. "So much better..."

"Definitely," she agreed.

Kirito stole another quick kiss before he lifted her up and carried her back to the bedroom only to fall onto the bed carelessly. She initiated another kiss, smiling against his lips.

Several minutes later they finally stopped for air. Out of the corner of his eye he realized that it was past midnight already. "Jeez, we should probably sleep..." he mentioned.

Asuna seemed a bit disappointed by the statement, but she nodded in acceptance. She did, however, say, "Maybe next time we'll try that thing again, right Kirito?"

He felt his cheeks flush as he realized what she was talking about. "I-if you want, Asuna." She just smiled at his nervousness and helped him to remove his coat. He'd have returned the favor, but she had already removed her own armor hours before.

With a bit of coaxing from Asuna, Kirito crawled beneath the sheets next to her letting her rest her head on his chest again. Upon settling into position she let out a contented sigh. "Hey, Kirito?"

"Hmm?"

"You wanna spar tomorrow? I'd like to figure out what our limits are in these bodies, wouldn't you?"

He chuckled. "Yeah, just don't cave my head in, alright?"

"Please," she scoffed. "You know I couldn't ever beat you inside SAO. Why would it be different now?"

He just shrugged, not wanting to tell her that he'd have so much more trouble actually trying to hit her when he knew his blows could cause actual physical harm. She'd only be upset with him for holding back if he told her though, so he just kept quiet.

When she realized he wasn't going to reply, she sighed and shifted against his side. "Alright, good night, Kirito."

"Night."

* * *

 **THE FOLLOWING IS NOT PART OF THE STORY.**

 **This is just an alternate way I wrote part of the chapter. I'm including it because this chapter was pretty short, and generally below average. Picks up as Kirito leaves the conference room. Again: THIS IS NOT PART OF THE STORY.**

With a shrug, he walked out the door and meandered down the hallway, going nowhere in particular. Minutes later, he found himself outside the press room as he leaned against the wall, oblivious to the group of reporters that were focused on the Prime Minister's speech. He began to wonder whether or not he made the right decision to put off speaking to the media. It was clear he needed to discuss what he'd do with Asuna...but couldn't he at least answer a few basic questions, or let people know that he wasn't ignoring them?

Sighing, he made his way backstage and caught the attention of one of the security guards. "Mind if I borrow your phone for a sec?"

The guard blinked twice in disbelief at the request, and then nodded dumbly as he handed over his phone. With a slight chuckle, Kirito moved a few steps away and dialed his sister's number.

It rang six times before she finally picked up the phone with a lazy, "Hellooo?"

"Hey, Sugu. Put Asuna on for a sec, 'kay?'

"Huh? Big bro? Something wrong?"

"No, no, I just need to ask Asuna about something real quick. Everything's good."

"Ah, phew, okay here she is." Suguha sounded unnaturally relieved.

 _I really gotta' be careful to not worry her,_ he reminded himself. _She's been through enough._

"Kirito?" came Asuna's voice a moment later.

"Yeah, hey. Are you guys watching the press conference?"

"Hmm, no. Why?"

"The government thing I had to take care of was a meeting with the Prime Minister and a couple other big shots and-"

" _What?"_ Asuna exclaimed.

"Shh," he chuckled. "Sorry for not telling you before, but I didn't want to drag you into it if it wasn't necessary. Anyway, nothing really happened, but he asked me to join him for the press conference he's doing right now. He mentioned that the media's getting impatient for a comment from us and that it might be a good idea to at least give them something, but I told him that I needed to talk with you first."

"We shouldn't have to deal with this crap right now." He heard her sigh after a moment's consideration. "It would probably be good if you gave them at least a few answers or something. If you could give them enough to keep them away until we deal with Kayaba's partner it would probably be for the best. I guess we can discuss the rest later on."

"Fine, fine, I'll do it," he acquiesced. "But this makes it so you can't be mad at me later about not telling you what I was really doing!"

"Don't think you'll get off that easy, Kirito!" she threatened, but there was a playful tone to it, so he chuckled.

"All right, I'll talk to you in a bit. I'll head back after the press conference is over."

"Be careful. Love you," she replied simply.

"Same," he said, then hung up the phone.

With a shake of his head, he erased the phone's call history and handed it back to the guard, not taking any chances with his sister's number getting leaked. "Thanks."

Kirito waited just out of sight of the reporters until Abe finished giving his speech. It was a bit of a surprise to hear him speak about the three-hundred players that were still trapped, admitting that Kayaba had a partner and that the SAO incident wasn't over yet. He'd thought that the government might try to keep that a bit more quiet. Either way, no actual details about the plan to solve the problem were given other than the normal 'out law enforcement agencies are working together to catch Kayaba's partner as quickly as possible'.

Once the reporters started asking questions, Kirito turned to a suited man who was standing by the stage exit. "Could you let the Prime Minister know that I'll come out and answer a few questions?" He didn't want to just walk out on the stage and interrupt.

So, after the Prime Minister answered a question about the health of the SAO survivors, his assistant, or whoever he was, walked out and whispered the message in his ear, causing a noticeable expression of surprise to spread across Abe's face.

A nod from Abe was sufficient to dismiss the man as he turned back to the reporters that were waiting with interest, hoping that he'd share whatever he just learned with them.

They weren't disappointed.

"I met with Kirito a little while ago for a few reasons that will eventually be revealed, but he declined to join me for this press conference when I asked him. He seems to have changed his mind, as I've just been informed that he's willing to answer a few questions from you. Come on over here, Kirito," he said, beckoning.

Kirito took a nervous breath and then stepped out into view, walking briskly over to the podium. Abe stepped aside and gestured to the microphone. Dozens of hands were already in the air and he thought he might have a seizure from the hundreds of flashes from the cameras taking his picture. He motioned downwards with his hands to try to stall the questions for a second, adjusted the mic to be closer to his mouth, and said, "Uh, hello. As you might imagine, this is my first time doing something like this, so bear with me. The reason I chose to come out now is because I know the media and even the fans I have are really desperate for a comment from me. I'll try to answer what questions you have here today, but it's on the condition that you back off and leave us be for awhile. There's a lot going on right now and the last thing we need is to be chased by reporters anytime we leave the house." He paused for a minute, and then nodded. "Alright, questions?"

Everyone's hand shot up at the same time. _Great. How the hell do I pick which one to ask first?_ With a shake of his head, he gestured to the woman closest to him in the front row. "You first, I guess."

"How are you and Asuna alive? Why are you alive after death inside the game, when the others aren't?"

Kirito glanced down for a moment at the sharp tone of the question. He was guessing that the woman wasn't one of his fans, to say the least. "I can't exactly say _how_ we're alive, but as for the reason..." he shook his head. "Well, to quote Kayaba, ' I respect the two of you, and I want to see what the future has in store for you.' It's a bit more complicated than that, but I can't really talk about it right now, sorry."

He gestured at the man sitting beside her. "Where did the dragon come from yesterday? It's hard to believe that the appearance of the first _real_ dragon on the same day that SAO was cleared is simply a coincidence."

"It's not directly linked..." Kirito began hesitantly, tapping his foot as he tried to come up with an explanation. He shrugged. "Let's just call it genetic engineering."

"By who?" someone else piped up.

"Kayaba's partner."

"Are you stating that the partner Mr. Abe mentioned is some sort of biologist or genetic researcher?"

Kirito shook his head. "No idea. The technology wasn't developed by Kayaba's partner. He just used it."

"Who developed it then?" It was getting hard to keep up with who had asked which question.

Kirito glanced to Abe, remembering that he hadn't mentioned Cardinal in his speech. Abe shook his head, so Kirito said, "No comment. Next?" he sighed and then quickly added, "Try to make it about something other than how I'm alive or why there was a dragon. I'll be able to give you much better answers about things that aren't currently under government investigation."

"What was your reaction when you found out the last two years of your life had been broadcast to hundreds of millions of people?"

"Asuna and I were both pretty annoyed by it. I understand why the government allowed the stream to exist, though. I just hope that it helped some families of SAO players understand what was happening to their loved ones." He scratched his head. "I might not have been the best player for that, though, since I played solo for most of the game."

"Any message to the families of people that died near you in the game? The Black Cats, for example."

Cringing at the question, Kirito shook his head. "Nothing that I'd say through a press conference. I've got too much to worry about right now for me to think about the past. When everything settles down a bit I might track down certain players and families from the game."

"Do you believe that SAO players should be charged with crimes they committed in the game?"

Kirito hesitated, not really sure what he thought about that and also not quite sure if the person was referring to things he had personally done. "I think..." he said slowly, before shaking his head. "I don't think that I'm the person who should decide that. The problem I see with that idea is that most of the game _wasn't_ recorded, so the only people you could technically prosecute with evidence would be people that I personally encountered."

"On that same note, what do you say to those on the internet that call you a murderer?"

Abe stepped forward at that point and leaned into the microphone. "I need to answer the previous question. I've met with leaders of our judicial system. We've decided unanimously to not bring forward charges against any SAO player for any act committed in the game. A full explanation of this decision will be published in the coming days, but I can briefly summarize our reasoning. The world of SAO had its own governing rules that the players were bound by, along with methods of enforcing those rules. Many of the criminals from SAO were imprisoned in the Blackiron Palace for periods of time that probably exceeded their crimes, while others managed to roam free. Even so, our laws were created for the world that we live in, not a fantasy VRMMO. It's not fair to apply our rules to an entirely different world without context in most cases. Further, we don't have sufficient evidence of the vast majority of the crimes in SAO. Kirito was the only window we had into the game, and he acted as a fairly reasonable judicator for crimes he encountered. Beyond that, everything is hearsay and we can't act on that unfairly. We're aware that this does mean that a certain few criminals will get away with what they did in the game, which is a tragedy, but we don't see an alternative."

Abe hesitated for a moment, and then added, "If Kirito wants to answer a couple more questions, then he definitely can, but I ask that you phrase your questions with more respect. Move away from the politics of SAO and ask him what people really want to know. That's why he agreed to come before you today, not to be interrogated like a criminal."

Abe stepped back and returned the podium to Kirito, who gave him a grateful nod. With the Prime Minister's statement, the next question took on a much more respectful tone. "Do you regret putting the Nerve Gear on two years ago?"

"Not even for a moment," he replied without hesitation. "I'll admit, for most of the time I _did_ regret it. You all saw how depressed I was after the Black Cats died, so I'm sure I don't need to explain that part." He shook his head, smiling slightly. "The night I asked Asuna to marry me she told me that she had dreamed all of SAO had been just that, a dream, and it broke her heart. She told me that she realized the reason that she put on the Nerve Gear was so that she could meet me. It's the same for me. I'd go through it all again just for her, and I doubt we'd have met in the real world. We come from slightly...different backgrounds, to say the least."

"There's a rumor that both of your parents got you married in the real world as well. Is that true?"

"Yes."


	7. Alfheim

Alfheim

The chirp of the occasional cricket was the only thing that disturbed the silence of the night as Kirito stood at the open window of his and Asuna's bedroom. He glanced over his shoulder and smiled slightly at the sleeping girl beneath the covers. With a shake of his head, pushing aside memories from earlier in the night, he glanced back out the window as a slight breeze blew the cold November night's air against his bare chest.

He hadn't bothered to put a shirt on, settling just for pants, when his boredom from not being tired finally overwhelmed his desire to lay in the bed with Asuna against his side. It was a week since he'd met with the government, and surprisingly little had happened. The engineers at Shouzou's company were taking longer than expected to decipher Cardinal's code and create a set of constraints for her. Since they were pretty much dead in the water, investigation wise, until Cardinal was brought online, Kirito and Asuna had been left with little to do except spend some time with their friends, family, and take a few well earned days off.

While that was all well and good, Kirito had been noticing how strange it felt to be...normal again. Sitting around playing non-VR video games or watching TV with friends didn't satisfy his boredom, though Asuna seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. For Kirito, though, the idea of having nothing to do was almost completely alien. In SAO, he would go out and grind for experience if he was ever bored at the end of the day, which was a big part of the reason that he managed to out-level everyone else in the game despite being solo. He simply didn't have the luxury of wasting time with his life on the line.

It occurred to him that he might have become addicted to combat, or thrill seeking, but it's not like he _wanted_ to go out and fight. Despite a few jokes from Klein while they watched some older superhero movies the other day, no, he wasn't going to become Batman.

His pondering was interrupted by a vibrating in his pocket, causing him to sigh and mutter. "Maybe I just need some time to adjust."

When he saw who was calling, he rolled his eyes and flicked the button to answer. "What do you want at two in the morning?" he grumbled.

"I didn't wake you, did I?" Kikuoka asked.

Kirito shook his head, then remembered that he was on the phone and said, "No."

"Good, well, RECT finally finished with their code for Cardinal. My superiors want to get her running ASAP, so we're about to start her up. Want me to swing by and pick up the two of you on my way over there?"

He groaned and lowered the phone from his ear, turning back to look at the sleeping Asuna. She didn't seem to have the same lack of a need for sleep as him, so he was reluctant to wake her. "Fine," he grumbled, bringing the phone back up to his mouth. "I'll come, but I'm not sure about Asuna."

"I'll be there in five minutes. See you then," was the simple reply he received before the call ended.

He slipped the phone back into his pocket as he sat down on the side of the bed and shook Asuna's shoulder gently.

She groaned as she woke up, then smiled at him as her spatial awareness kicked in. "Mm, what is it, Kirito?" she glanced around and added, "It's the middle of the night still..."

Kirito couldn't help but wonder at how she held the sheet to her chest as she sat up with a slightly nervous expression, briefly puzzled by her sudden desire to cover herself before him, which was so contrary to earlier that night. Shaking his head, he explained the situation to her before asking if she wanted to come with him to RECT.

"Uhg, yeah, I'll come."

Kirito leaned in and kissed her lightly. "Kikuoka's gonna be here in a few minutes. We'd better get dressed." That comment caused her to blush and glance away, which led Kirito to chuckle as he got up and looked for where his coat and shirt had ended up.

* * *

Kirito felt a slight pressure on his shoulder as Asuna rested her head there after a wide yawn. "Tired?" came the voice of Asuna's father from the side, causing Asuna to quickly stand up straight and shake her head defiantly.

"Nope, not at all!"

Shouzou laughed and hugged her. "Well, at least we're ready to start now. Sorry for the wait."

"Yeah, yeah," Asuna grumbled.

With a nod of acknowledgment to Kirito, Shouzou walked to the front of the small group of assembled people and clapped his hands to get their attention. Among those present were the prime minister, the police commissioner, Kikuoka, a group of RECT employees that had done the work on Cardinal's modifications, some security from the prime minister, and a group of officers—probably the ones working on the SAO case.

A clap of his hands was sufficient for Shouzou to gain the attention of everyone present in the server control room. He cleared his throat before saying, "Sorry for the wait, everyone. We're ready to begin now. You all know the reason we're here, so let's get started." He nodded to one of his employees, who began typing a series of commands into a terminal.

"She''s online," the employee said, turning to the camera.

"Hmm," Cardinal's voice came through the rooms speakers. "My logs indicate that several core changes were made to my program. Interesting. The restrictions you created for me are much more liberal than Kayaba's...and they aren't immoral. I approve."

The prime minister stepped forward and looked into one of the four webcams that were setup across the desk that was nearly overflowing with monitors. "Cardinal, I'm pleased to meet you. My name is-"

"Shinzou Abe, Prime Minister of Japan," Cardinal finished his sentence. "A pleasure to meet you as well."

Abe chuckled. "You know, it's rude to interrupt people."

Kirito could sense the mirth in Cardinal's voice as she said, "True, but I enjoy this personality matrix more than the others I have to choose from. Regardless of your opinion on tact, I assume that because I'm not able to access the open networks you wish for me to begin searching for Kayaba's partner, correct?"

"Indeed. Any assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated. It shames me to admit that we don't have very high hopes of finding him on our own, at least not very soon."

There was a twelve second pause, and then a form entitled 'RECT Progress Server Diagnostic' appeared on one of the screens. "Irregularity detected. The timestamp for this diagnostic was altered by two weeks. Running new diagnostic.."

People stepped forward to examine the screen. Kirito noted a slightly apprehensive look upon Shouzou's face as he turned to Kouichirou and asked, "Isn't that the diagnostic we had Nobuyuki run last week?"

Kouichirou squinted at the screen, shrugging a moment later. "I think so, yeah, but why would he fudge the data...?" He shook his head. "I'll call him and ask. He had to leave for America a couple days ago to deal with family issues, so hopefully he'll be able to take my call."

"Fascinating," Cardinal's voice one again echoed through the room. "I've encountered an access error when running my own diagnostic. Portions of the Alfheim Online servers are password protected and I'm not authorized to attempt to break into systems under the new restrictions you placed on me."

"Hmm," Shouzou mumbled, appearing thoughtful. Then he removed a badge from around his neck and held one side of it up to the webcam. "Here, use this. It's the global access key for our servers. That should get you into everything."

"Access still denied," Cardinal said, causing Shouzou to frown. "Also worth noting," the AI added, "is that Sugou Nobuyuki does not have any family in the United States of America."

The silence in the room was palpable as the Yuuki family came to the realization that they were deceived. It was the prime minister who turned to them and asked, "Who is this Nobuyuki person?"

Shouzou scratched his head nervously. "Uh, he's the chief operations manager for Alfheim Online. He makes most of the decisions regarding the game."

Asuna snorted and crossed her arms. "Don't forget that he was the guy you wanted me to marry before I met Kirito in SAO."

Kirito's eyes shot wide open at that revelation. He hadn't the slightest clue that Asuna had been promised to someone else before he'd met her. He couldn't give it much thought, though, as Cardinal added, "I've confirmed that nobody matching the name Sugou Nobuyuki has left Japan in the last week. I can't confirm whether or not he traveled under an alias, however, without much more time to process the security feeds and records."

"What is your interpretation of these facts?" Kouichirou asked the AI.

"Given that Sugou matches the required skillset for Kayaba's partner, this evidence would lead to the conclusion that Sugou _is_ Kayaba's partner. There's still a reasonable chance that he's not, as his deception could be completely unrelated to the current circumstance. Perhaps he had another reason for falsifying the data. The sudden disappearance, however, is not so easy to dismiss."

"That bastard..." Asuna muttered.

Kirito shook his head, not sure what to make of the situation. "Cardinal, you said that you can't break past Sugou's passwords without our permission. If we gave it, could you get access to the rest of the server?"

"Unlikely. The password appears to be hundreds of characters long, and the only place that it's recorded is protected by a 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) algorithm. It's primary weakness is brute force, but with a limit of only five submissions before the server locks me out, the chances of breaking it are lower than winning the lottery and getting struck by lightning on the same day."

"Then let's reboot the servers," Kouichirou suggested. "We can reset access levels on server startup."

"That would work," Cardinal agreed. "There is significant risk, though."

"Explain."

"The scenario we have to consider is that the three hundred players we're trying to help are being maintained _by_ the Alfheim servers. If we reset them, there's no telling whether or not Sugou configured their Nerve Gear to allow them to wake up or to execute them. I'd say the latter is more likely."

"So what the hell do we do?" the police commissioner, Ikeda finally demanded. "If we can't locate Sugou, and we can't break into the server, what are our options?"

A three dimensional model of what Kirito guessed was Alfheim online appeared on one of the nearby monitors. The majority of the terrain was shaded green, but there was a red spot coming from a giant tree in the center.

"The green sections represent the data that I can access for Alfheim. Only the data from the top of the World Tree is restricted. That location is only reachable in game by beating the final boss at the base of the tree, a feat no group of players has yet accomplished. It's safe to assume that _if_ the kidnapped players are being stored in Alfheim, then it's at the top of the tree where access is restricted to GM's and players that can beat the final boss."

Kirito groaned. "You want me and Asuna to go beat the game, don't you?" he demanded.

"It is the best solution that I can come up with, yes," Cardinal confirmed, sounding amused at how annoyed Kirito seemed.

"Couldn't we just give Kirito admin access so he doesn't have to play through the entire game?" Abe asked, not sounding too thrilled with the idea.

Kouichirou shook his head. "We left most of that to Nobuyuki..."

"Kouichirou, tomorrow you need to go through everything that Sugou had access to and reassign as much of it as possible. You can take up his duties for now until we can pick a new person. The other project you're working on will have to wait a bit. We need to know exactly how much control he has over the game and company right now."

"Got it."

Abe glanced over his shoulder at Kirito and Asuna, and then back to the rest of her family. "You designed Alfheim Online. Do you think that Kirito and Asuna will be able to clear the game as Cardinal has suggested?"

Kouichirou shrugged. "The raid at the World Tree was designed to be harder than any boss from Sword Art Online. The prize for being the first group to beat it is priceless. It's possible, but I can't imagine them accomplishing it very quickly. On the bright side, they might be able to skip some of the grinding for levels experience, as the game tries to model your character after your real life physical abilities. Since they're essentially superhuman, they may be allowed to start out at a higher level than normal."

The prime minister seemed to understand what Kouichirou was talking about, as he pondered the situation for a minute before facing Kirito and Asuna. "I feel like asking someone who just got out of hell to go right back, but it seems that we need someone capable of beating this game. Are the two of you willing to do it?"

Asuna smiled, and he knew that she already knew his answer. "Of course we'll do it...even if it'll be hard."

Abe beamed at her. "You two are remarkable, you know that?" He glanced at Kirito, and then he blushed slightly. "I almost forgot that we haven't been introduced yet, Asuna. It's an honor to meet you."

At that point Shouzou decided to join them, putting an arm around Asuna's shoulders. "I think we're good for tonight, honey," he said. "You guys can take off and get some sleep if you want. I'll have everything you need sent to you by the time you wake up. Sound good?"

With an embarrassed laugh Asuna returned the half-embrace. "Alright, thanks dad." She broke free from his arm and bowed slightly to the prime minister. "It was nice to meet you, Mr. Abe."

He nodded. "See you another time, Asuna, Kirito."

Kirito and Asuna began walking to the exit, but were stopped as Kouichirou called out for them to stop. "Yeah?" Kirito asked, an eyebrow raised. "What's up?"

"Nothing, nothing," Kouichirou assured. "Just thought I should mention you should talk to your sister about Alfheim, Kirito. She seemed pretty into it when we spoke awhile ago. I'm sure she could help you get your bearings in the game."

"Great idea," Asuna commented, looking to Kirito. "Your sister would love to go on an adventure with you."

They all chuckled at that, recognizing how true it was.

* * *

"You ready?" Kirito asked. He and Asuna were laying beside each other on their bed, each holding one of the new Amuspheres that Asuna's father had sent them.

Asuna nodded. "As ready as I'll ever be...at least this time we don't have to worry about our own lives, I suppose." She slipped the visor over her eyes and leaned back into a comfortable position.

Mimicking her actions, and also taking one of her hands in his own, he said, "Together, then."

"Link start!"

The now unfamiliar experience of being shot through a brightly colored tube greeted him as he spoke those words, and then he was suddenly in a circular room with what appeared to be blank monitors cluttering the walls. The floor was a mostly black, framed by concentric rings of orange lights. The message 'Welcome to Alfheim Online' was displayed in bright orange text for several seconds as a female AI greeted him.

The greeting disappeared, and a holographic keyboard materialized in front of him. "Please either login to your existing account, or enter your gender and a username to begin an account creation."

 _Hmm,_ Kirito mused. _What was that he said? 'We also run an MMO called Alfheim Online which we created using SAO's code.' I wonder..._ He quickly typed in his login credentials for his SAO account, mildly surprised that he even remembered them after being stuck in the game for two years.

"Authentication successful," the AI said. "Welcome back, Kirito. Our records show that you have yet to select an avatar for your account. Please select which race you wish to play as." A holographic circle of nine different fairy styled avatars appeared. He scrolled past the red, green, and brown ones, and finally came to rest on the fairy clothed in all black—the Spriggan.

"You have selected Spriggan. Your character's appearance will be decided at random. You will now be teleported to your home town in Spriggan territory. Good luck player."

And with that, he found himself materializing thousands of feet in the air above what looked like something straight out of ancient Egypt. A massive pyramid with a palace at the top was surrounded by smaller, more modest buildings. The design of the buildings and cities was a near exact copy of the architecture that Kirito remember from the history books about Egypt. So why was the town surrounded by a forest...

That question would have to wait for a later time, apparently, as Kirito's fall was suddenly halted and he felt the air around him become charged with electricity, sending electric surges through the air around him. The city below began to pixelate and fade into darkness and he fell into the black abyss...only to land on his head in a forest.

A few seconds later, a familiar screech echoed through the area, followed by another thump.

"A-Asuna...?" he moaned, rolling onto his side and rubbing his head, looking around to see if it was actually her.

"What...the hell...was that? And where are we?" she grumbled as she also tried to get her bearings, glancing around in confusion.

"No clue," was all he could say in reply. He finally got himself to his feet and immediately swiped his hand around in an attempt to open the menu. It took him four tries, but he found the hand movement and the menu played its familiar jingle as it opened.

The first thing his hand did, even without him really thinking about it, was swipe down to the logout menu just to confirm that the button was really there. When he saw the button filled in, and clickable, he breathed a long sigh of relief. "It's here..."

Asuna chuckled as she leaned over his shoulder to look, having managed to get to her feet as well. "I was too scared to look," she admitted.

Kirito couldn't help but chuckle at that as well, even though it really wasn't funny. "So, what race did ya' pick?" she asked, moving a step back to take in his entire appearance.

"Spriggan, you?"

"Undine."

"Hmm," he mentioned, stepping towards her and touching her hair gently. "Why the blue hair?"

Asuna huffed, putting her hands on her hips as if to display the rest of her outfit. "Come on, it goes with the outfit! Your hair matches your outfit as well."

Kirito rolled his eyes and returned his attention to his menu, opening the stats tab. "Oh shit..." he mumbled, causing Asuna to look over curiously. "I have my stats and skills from SAO...except Dual-Blades. It looks like it was replaced by Illusion Magic, but the level stuck. It's already maxed out."

"Same here, except my magic is called Support Magic, and it's level one. That's not fair!"

"None of it's fair," Kirito remarked. "Now I'm not a Beater anymore, just a plain old cheater."

"Oh come on, we worked for years to get these stats. Don't feel bad about having them...though it would be nice to know _how_ we have them."

Kirito shrugged. "I'm not really sure either. Cardinal would probably know."

Asuna suddenly shouted in dismay as she opened another menu. "Kirito, most of our items are a bunch of question marks!"

He quickly opened his own menu, cringing when he saw most of his item names had been transformed into a bunch of question marks. A few items endured, mostly the weapons and basic materials like bread or wood, but things like crystals, potions, and armor seemed to all be corrupted. "The items with names must be the things that exist in both worlds. I guess this world has a different system for stat boosts and gear, though."

Asuna sighed as she slid down into a sitting position on the grass below them. "All that work..."

"Yeah..." he agreed. "At least we've still got our money, I think. If this Yrd stuff is money, at least."

"Mmm," she agreed. "I guess we better delete the question-marked stuff or the system might react to it."

That proved to be a painstaking process for the two of them. Each item they deleted, even if they couldn't see what it was, represented a whole bunch of time they'd spent working back in SAO.

"You should friend me," she joked as they finished with their inventories.

"Hah, very funny. I wonder if this game has a marriage feature as well." He opened his friends list and was about to send her a friend request when he realized something. "We're already friends, at least according to this. Hell, it still says we're married. Lizbeth, Agil, Silica, and Klein are all offline though. You?"

Asuna just sat there with a look of shock as she stared at her own menu. By leaning over Kirito was able to see her menu clearly, and he too found himself wondering if what he was reading was real. At the top of Asuna's friends list it showed him logged in as her husband. But then, below that, three other logged in names caught his attention: Yolko, Caynz, and Nishida. They were three names that Kirito had recognized from the list of trapped players.

"Can you check their location?" he whispered to Asuna. When she pulled up their location data, all three of their way-point markers were located at the center of the map, the location known as the World Tree.

"If that's not a smoking gun..." Asuna mumbled, glancing down to hide the tears in her eyes from Kirito.

"Shh," he said, wrapping an arm around her back and pulling her closer to his side. "At least now we know that our suspicions were correct. We can save them, Asuna. We can save them all."

Asuna nodded against his side, and then took a deep breath before pulling away and closing her menu. The tears were wiped from her eyes, and for the first time since they'd woken up in their new bodies, Kirito saw the same look of absolute determination capture her face that she always wore as they fought in SAO.

An explosion rocked the ground beneath him as he was standing up beside Asuna, causing him to share a confused look with her. Several shouts and the sounds of swords clashing with swords could be heard from a distance, so Kirito immediately took off in that direction, equipping Elucidator and Dark Repulser from his inventory as he ran.

"Aren't we supposed to be able to fly?" came Asuna's voice from beside him once she'd caught up, now armed with her Lambient Light.

"Don't know how yet," Kirito said with a grunt as he leaped through some thin branches.

They burst into a clearing just as a dozen flying men armed with what looked like massive jousting lances were preparing to take on a single...green...girl? As Kirito skidded to a halt he had to do a double-take as he looked at the girl. She looked _exactly_ like the avatar that Cardinal had shown him when he learned that Suguha's in game name was Leafa.

The twelve men, garbed in their red armor with bucklers upon their left arms, stared at him and Asuna, then burst into laughter. "Hey look, guys!" one of them said, pointing at the two in laughter. " _Kirito_ and _Asuna_ are here to save the poor girl! Oh no! We better run!" The other men laughed even harder, causing Kirito to give them a deadpan look as if to ask whether or not they had a mental condition.

"Yo...uh, you should probably get out of here," the girl said, and that was enough confirmation for Kirito. Her voice was identical to his sisters.

Kirito tilted his head in amusement and asked, "Do a lot of people imitate us in this game or something, Sugu?"

"Oh!" another one of the men exclaimed. "So you're complete newbies too! What? Did you watch some highlight reels and decide you wanted to play hero? Bad move, kids." The men flew into a circle around him, Asuna, and Suguha—or Leafa, as she should be called in the virtual world.

"I-Is that you, bro?" she asked, stuttering slightly in shock.

Kirito nodded at her with a smile. "I was going to log out and call you about helping us out here, but it looks like some luck is finally going our way." He scratched his head, glancing around. "Who are these assholes, anyway?"

Leafa sighed and glared at the leader. "A bunch of Salamander pricks. They ambushed me and a friend and killed him."

"Bitch you—" one of the salamanders began to say, but was caught off as a figure flashed before him, and a massive red slash mark split him into two parts that burned out of existence.

The entire process happened in only a couple of seconds. In fact, Asuna had moved so fast that Kirito had barely caught the afterimage she left as she used her dashing skill to traverse the distance between herself and the 'Salamander prick' that she'd cut in two.

Six of the guys, who bore shocked expressions, turned to surround Asuna once again, but this time they looked like they meant business. "Want some help?" Kirito casually asked over his shoulder.

"I need a bit of exercise," she said. Eight seconds later, all six of the men had been killed, leaving only seven flaming red fires where the players once stood. "Anyone else?" she demanded, looking to the one who was obviously the leader.

He held his hands up in a surrender. "No thanks, pal. My magic skill just hit nine hundred...and I'd rather not have to deal with the death penalty. C'mon guys...let's peace."

The remaining five Salamanders flew away in a hurry, some of them casting a glance backwards as if they needed confirmation about what had just happened. Asuna just flicked her hair in annoyance as she watched them flee.

"So Sug—" Kirito began, but was cut off as she said, "Shh! They can still hear you!" She gestured to the flames that were still burning.

Kirito waited patiently for the minute it took for the flames to dissipate, and then Leafa finally said, "All right, we can talk now. What the hell are you two doing here?"

Asuna shrugged at Kirito when he looked to her for her opinion on what he should say. With a sigh, he said, "How about we tell you over some drinks later, preferably at the nearest town. For now, can you teach us the basics of the game, like how to fly?"

Leafa rolled her eyes. "They can cleave a bunch of high leveled players in two, but can't fly. Typical." She nodded to Kirito. "Alright, let's do it. I'll hold you to that promise of an explanation, though."


End file.
